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PRINCETON : NEW JERSEY 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
SOCIOLOGICAL SERIES 


Editorial Committee 


ELLsworrtH Faris Rosert E. Park 
Ernest W. BurcEss 


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THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


— 


THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
NEW YORK 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED 
TORONTO 


THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
LONDON 


THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI 


THE COMMERCIAL PRESS, LIMITED 
SHANGHAI 


THE URBA 
COMMUNITY 


Selected Papers from 
The Proceedings of the American 
Sociological Society 


1925 


Eprrep sy ERNEST W. BURGESS 


Secretary of the American Sociological Society 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO : ILLINOIS 


Copyricnt 1926 By 
Tue University oF CHICAGO 


All Rights Reserved 


Published October 1926 
Second Impression September 1927 


Composed and Printed By 
The University of Chicago Press 
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


Nine years ago the central topic at the annual meeting of the 
American Sociological Society was ‘Rural Sociology.” So great 
was the demand for the volume, especially for use in classes in uni- 
versities and colleges, that a second edition was necessary. This 
year when the papers read at the main sessions of the Society were 
organized around the subject ““The City” the Executive Committee, 
in anticipation of a like interest, authorized the publication of a 
special edition, to which it has seemed best to give the title The 
Urban Community. 

It is probably not merely a historical accident that the system- 
atic study of rural life has preceded by more than a decade the 
sociological study of the city. Indeed, the center of gravity of the 
country-life movement had been from the start not in the solution 
of the economic problems of the farmer, nor even in social reform in 
the narrower sense of that term, but in the cultural life of the rural 
community and its development in response to the changing eco- 
nomic and social situation. The work of Butterfield, Galpin, and 
Gillette, to mention only three pioneer rural sociologists, has been 
more concerned with the analysis and the description of the eco- 
nomic, social, and cultural organization of the rural community than 
with the more technical matters of scientific agriculture, of the ad- 
ministration of co-operative enterprises, or of rural health and social 
work. 

The absence of a corresponding urban-life movement may be 
attributed to several causes. The very size and complexity of the 
city; the unforeseen and seemingly unpredictable changes which ac- 
company rapid growth; the mobility and diversity of its population, 
have made it difficult, almost impossible, to conceive of the city as 


vil 


viii PREFACE 


anything more than a geographical or administrative unit. At the 
same time the very urgency of the many social problems, accentu- 
ated if not caused by urban growth, has given rise not to one, but 
to many and diverse movements. 

As a matter of fact, the city has been the ‘happy hunting 
ground” of movements: the better-government movement, the 
social-work movement, the public-health movement, the playground 
movement, the social-center movement, the settlement movement, 
the Americanization movement. All these movements, lacking a 
basic understanding or conception of the city, have relied upon 
administrative devices, for the most part, to correct the evils of city 
life. Even the community organization movement, theoretically 
grounded upon a conception of the city as a unit, had the misfor- 
tune to stake its program upon an assumption of the supreme value 
of the revival of the neighborhood in the city instead of upon a prag- 
matic, experimental program guided by studies of actual conditions 
and trends in urban life. 

The tendency at present is to think of the city as living, growing; 
as an organism, in short. This notion of the city in terms of growth 
and behavior gives the character of order and unity to the many 
concrete phenomena of the city which otherwise, no matter how in- 
teresting, seemed but meaningless flotsam and jetsam in the drift of 
urban life. With the dawning perception of the breakdown of our 
traditional institutions of social control, and of the failure of the 
many promising makeshifts for them, a disposition is emerging to 
base fundamental changes in these institutions upon a more funda- 
mental understanding of the city as a product of the interplay of 
economic and cultural forces. 

This volume may be taken, perhaps, as a prospectus of the pres- 
ent state and promise of sociological research in this field. The in- 
troductory paper by President Robert E. Park indicates the range 
of the materials for research represented in the papers which follow. 
At the same time, it seeks to chart and analyze the significance of 


PREFACE ix 


the interrelationships of the different techniques of research, eco- 
logical, cultural, and statistical, which have been and are being ap- 
plied to the study of the city. The main divisions of this volume 
mark off certain of these fields even more sharply: human nature 
and the city; the social biology of city life; statistics of the city; the 
ecology of the city. 

The individual papers no doubt have a value independent of their 
place in this volume. But it is believed that their value is increased 
by indicating their position and significance with reference to a gen- 
eral topic. In this sense, the volume is something more than an ex- 
hibit of research in progress; it is an introduction to an urban soci- 
ology. 

From the beginning the papers read at meetings of the Society, 
as in this volume, have been, so far as possible, organized about some 
single topic. But with the growth of technical interests in a growing 
number of diverse fields, this aim is rendered the more difficult. Yet 
this is just the course of development by which sociology is being 
transformed from a social philosophy into a science of society. At 
the same time, so far as different points of view and methods of 
study can be focused upon a single subject, the results, while varied, 
are more fruitful. In this volume, the attempt is made to present 
not only from a fundamental point of view, but also from different 
angles, the present findings of research on the city. In this way, too, 
perhaps as well as in any other way, are exhibited whatever prac- 
tical bearings theoretical studies have upon the practical problems of 
city life. The reader will also understand the reason for the necessary 
lack of rigid co-ordination of the papers and the absence of an all- 
round treatment of the different aspects of city life. 


ERNEST W. BurRGESS 
July 7, 1926 


fu 


4 ‘ at 


AN 


as 


7 


Th 


CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION 


THE URBAN COMMUNITY AS A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A Morat ORDER. 
Robert E. Park . 


HUMAN NATURE AND THE CITY 
THE NATURE OF HuMAN Nature. Ellsworth Faris . 


THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT. William L Vs 
Thomas . 


SocraL DISTANCE IN THE City. E. S. Bogardus . ; 
A SoctaL PHILOSOPHY OF THE City. NicholasJ.Spykman . 


SOCIAL BIOLOGY OF CITY LIFE 
SocroLocy AND Brotocy. £. B. Reuter 
THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PRocEsSES. E. EL. ‘Sutherland 
THE EUGENICS OF THE City. Roswell H. Johnson 


SomE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SELECTION ON THE AMERICAN NEGRO. M alville 
J. Herskovits 


THE DWELLER IN FURNISHED eee Ne iene TYPE. pines W. 
Zorbaugh 


SoME JEWISH Types OF PersoNnaLity. Louis Wirth 


STATISTICS OF THE CITY. 


A REDEFINITION OF “City” IN TERMS OF DENSITY OF POPULATION. 
Walter F. Willcox 


AMERICAN City BirtH-Rates. H. B. Woolston . 


SomME Economic FACTORS IN THE DETERMINATION OF THE SIZE OF AMERI- 
CAN Cittes. C. E. Gehlke . 


THE URBAN EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN 2000 A.D. H baste, It art 


Tue STATISTICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POPULATION AND THE CITY 
Pian. Ernest P. Goodrich . 


THE RATE OF GROWTH OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF ee IN THE UNITED 
States. J. M. Gilletie . 


xi 


PAGE 


3 


21 


38 
48 
55 


67 
7O 
79 


gt 


98 


106 


115 


I22 


133 
139 


144 


ISI 


xii CONTENTS 


PopuLaTION MosiLiry AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION. LeRoy E. 
Bowman . 7 by GRE kee ae Oe a 
MALADJUSTMENT OF YOUTH IN RELATION TO eieete OF POPULATION. 

M. C. Elmer 


ECOLOGY OF THE CITY 
Tue Scope or Human Ecotocy. R. D. McKenzie . 
Tue RISE OF THE METROPOLITAN Community. NV. S. B. Gras 


Tue DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE IN THE City: A Socio- 
LOGICAL ANALYSIS. Walter C. Reckless 


COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN CITY AND REGIONAL Pree Shelby M. 
Harrison . 


THE NATURAL AREAS OF THE ue i arvey W. Pokaan 


TYPICAL STUDIES IN URBAN SOCIOLOGY 
Tue Crry As A Community: AN INTRODUCTION TO A RESEARCH PROJECT. 
Cecil C. North Sha tae Bol ub ie eney ATCA Rafe 
Tue Locat CoMMUNITY AS A UNIT IN THE PLANNING OF URBAN RESI- 
DENTIAL AREAS. Clarence Arthur Perry . 


Tue RESEARCH RESOURCES OF A TYPICAL AMERICAN City AS EXEMPLI- 
FIED BY THE City oF BuFFALo. Niles Carpenter 


Tue Stupy oF Erunic Factors IN Community Lire. B. B. Wessel 

SEGREGATION OF POPULATION Tyes IN THE Kansas City AREA. Stuart 
A. Queen LRA Map Re TREO hy Gan, HOE 

Tur Errect oF IMMIGRATION UPON THE INCREASE OF POPULATION IN 
THE Unitep States. J. M. Gillette . 


CHANGES IN OCCUPATION AND Economic STATUS OF SEVERAL HUNDREDS 
or AMERICAN FAMILIES DURING FouR GENERATIONS. Pitirim A. 


Sorokin 


INDEX 
INDEX 


257 


265 


Ri i} i 


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a ee ee 
wie t 
Z 


7 


THE URBAN COMMUNITY AS A SPACIAL 
PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER" 


Some thirty years ago Professor Eugenius Warming, of Co- 
penhagen, published a little volume entitled Plant Communities 
(Plantesamfund). Warming’s observations called attention to the 
fact that different species of plants tend to form permanent groups, 
which he called communities. Plant communities, it turned out, ex- 
hibit a good many of the traits of living organisms. They come into 
existence gradually, pass through certain characteristic changes, 
and eventually are broken up and succeeded by other communities 
of a very different sort. These observations later become the point 
of departure for a series of investigations which have since become 
familiar under the title “Ecology.” 

Ecology, in so far as it seeks to describe the actual distribution 
of plants and animals over the earth’s surface, is in some very real 
sense a geographical science. Human ecology, as the sociologists 
would like to use the term, is, however, not identical with geog- 
raphy, nor even with human geography. It is not man, but the 
community; not man’s relation to the earth which he inhabits, but 
his relations to other men, that concerns us most. 

Within the limits of every natural area the distribution of popu- 
lation tends to assume definite and typical patterns. Every local 
group exhibits a more or less definite constellation of the individual 
units that compose it. The form which this constellation takes, the 
position, in other words, of every individual in the community with 
reference to every other, so far as it can be described in general 
terms, constitutes what Durkheim and his school call the morpho- 
logical aspect of society.” 

* Presidential address. 


* Geographers are probably not greatly interested in social morphology as such. 
On the other hand, sociologists are. Geographers, like historians, have been tradi- 


3 


4 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


Human ecology, as sociologists conceive it, seeks to emphasize 
not so much geography as space. In society we not only live to- 
gether, but at the same time we live apart, and human relations can 
always be reckoned, with more or less accuracy, in terms of dis- 
tance. In so far as social structure can be defined in terms of posi- 
tion, social changes may be described in terms of movement; and 
society exhibits, in one of its aspects, characters that can be meas- 
ured and described in mathematical formulas. 

Local communities may be compared with reference to the 
areas which they occupy and with reference to the relative density 
of population distribution within those areas. Communities are not, 
however, mere population aggregates. Cities, particularly great 
cities, where the selection and segregation of the populations has 
gone farthest, display certain morphological characteristics which 
are not found in smaller population aggregates. 

One of the incidents of size is diversity. Other things being 
equal, the larger community will have the wider division of labor. 
An examination a few years ago of the names of eminent persons 
listed in Who’s Who indicated that in one large city (Chicago) 
there were, in addition to the 509 occupations listed by the census, 
116 other occupations classed as professions. The number of pro-- 
fessions requiring special and scientific training for their practice | 
is an index and a measure of the intellectual life of the community. 
For the intellectual life of a community is measured not merely 
by the scholastic attainments of the average citizen, nor even by 
the communal intelligence-quotient, but by the extent to which 
rational methods have been applied to the solution of communal 
problems—health, industry, and social control, for example. 


tionally interested in the actual rather than the typical. Where are things actually 
located? What did actually happen? These are the questions that geography and 
history have sought to answer. See A Geographical Introduction to History, by 
M. Lucien Febvre and Lionel Bataillon. 


A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER 5 


One reason why cities have always been the centers of intellec- 
tual life is that they have not only made possible, but have en- 
forced, an individualization and a diversification of tasks. Only as 
every individual is permitted and compelled to focus his attention 
upon some small area of the common human experience, only as he 
learns to concentrate his efforts upon some small segment of the 
common task, can the vast co-operation which civilization demands 
be maintained. 

In an interesting and suggestive paper read before the Ameri- 
can Sociological Society at its meeting in Washington in 1922, Pro- 
fessor Burgess sketched the processes involved in the growth of 
cities. The growth of cities has usually been described in terms of 
extensions of territory and increase in numbers. The city itself has 
been identified with an administrative area, the municipality; but 
the city, with which we are here concerned, is not a formal and 
administrative entity. It is rather a product of natural forces, ex- 
tending its own boundaries more or less independently of the limits 
imposed upon it for political and administrative purposes. This has 
become to such an extent a recognized fact that in any thorough- 
going study of the city, either as an economic or a social unit, it has 
been found necessary to take account of natural, rather than offi- 
cial, city boundaries. Thus, in the city-planning studies of New 
York City, under the direction of the Russell Sage Foundation, 
New York City includes a territory of 5,500 square miles, including 
in that area something like one hundred minor administrative units, 
cities, and villages, with a total population of 9,000,000. 

We have thought of the growth of cities as taking place by a 
mere aggregation. But an increase in population at any point with- 
in the urban area is inevitably reflected and felt in every other part 
of the city. The extent to which such an increase of population in 
one part of the city is reflected in every other depends very largely 
upon the character of the local transportation system. Every ex- 


6 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


tension and multiplication of the means of transportation connect- 
ing the periphery of the city with the center tends to bring more 
people to the central business district, and to bring them there 
oftener. This increases the congestion at the center; it increases, 
eventually, the height of office buildings and the values of the land 
on which these buildings stand. The influence of land values at the 
business center radiates from that point to every part of the city. 
If the growth at the center is rapid it increases the diameter of the 
area held for speculative purposes just outside the center. Property 
held for speculation is usually allowed to deteriorate. It easily 
assumes the character of a slum; that is to say, an area of casual 
and transient population, an area of dirt and disorder, “of missions 
and of lost souls.” These neglected and sometimes abandoned re- 
gions become the points of first settlement of immigrants. Here are 
located our ghettos, and sometimes our bohemias, our Greenwich 
Villages, where artists and radicals seek refuge from the funda- 
mentalism and the Rotarianism, and, in general, the limitations 
and restrictions of a Philistine World. Every large city tends to 
have its Greenwich Village just as it has its Wall Street. 

The growth of the city involves not merely the addition of num- 
bers, but all the incidental changes and movements that are inevita- 
bly associated with the efforts of every individual to find his place 
in the vast complexities of urban life. The growth of new regions, 
the multiplication of professions and occupations, the incidental in- 
crease in land values which urban expansion brings—all are in- 
volved in the processes of city growth, and can be measured in 
terms of changes of position of individuals with reference to other 
individuals, and to the community as a whole. Land values can be 
reckoned, for example, in terms of mobility of population. The 
highest land values exist at points where the largest number of peo- 
ple pass in the course of twenty-four hours. 

The community, as distinguished from the individuals who 


A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER 7 


compose it, has an indefinite life-span. We know that communities 
come into existence, expand and flourish for a time, and then de- 
cline. This is as true of human societies as it is of plant communi- 
ties. We do not know with any precision as yet the rhythm of these 
changes. We do know that the community outlives the individuals 
who compose it. And this is one reason for the seemingly inevitable 
and perennial conflict between the interests of the individual and 
the community. This is one reason why it costs more to police a 
growing city than one which is stationary or declining. 

Every new generation has to learn to accommodate itself to an 
order which is defined and maintained mainly by the older. Every 
society imposes some sort of discipline upon its members. Individu- 
als grow up, are incorporated into the life of the community, and 
eventually drop out and disappear. But the community, with the 
moral order which it embodies, lives on. The life of the community 
therefore involves a kind of metabolism. It is constantly assimilat- 
ing new individuals, and just as steadily, by death or otherwise, 
eliminating older ones. But assimilation is not a simple process, 
and, above all else, takes time. 

The problem of assimilating the native-born is a very real one; 
it is the problem of the education of children in the homes and of 
adolescents in the schools. But the assimilation of adult migrants, 
finding for them places in the communal organization, is a more 
serious problem: it is the problem of adult education, which we 
have just in recent years begun to consider with any real sense of 
its importance. 

There is another aspect of the situation which we have hardly 
considered. Communities whose population increase is due to the 
excess of births over deaths and communities whose increase is due 
to immigration exhibit important differences. Where growth is due 
to immigration, social change is of necessity more rapid and more 
profound. Land values, for one thing, increase more rapidly; the 


8 ' THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


replacement of buildings and machinery, the movement of popula- 
tion, changes in occupation, increase in wealth, and reversals in 
social position proceed at a more rapid tempo. In general, society 
tends to approach conditions which are now recognized as charac- 
teristic of the frontier. 

In a society in which great and rapid changes are in progress 
there is a greater need for public education of the sort that we ordi- 
narily gain through the public press, through discussion and con- 
versation. On the other hand, since personal observation and tradi- 
tion, upon which common sense, as well as the more systematic in- 
vestigations of science, is finally based, are not able to keep pace 
with changes in conditions, there occurs what has been described 
by Ogburn as the phenomenon of “cultural lag.” Our political 
knowledge and our common sense do not keep up with the actual 
changes that are taking place in our common life. The result is, 
perhaps, that as the public feels itself drifting, legislative enact- 
ments are multiplied, but actual control is decreased. Then, as the 
public realizes the futility of legislative enactments, there is a de- 
mand for more drastic action, which expresses itself in ill-defined 
mass movements and, often, in mere mob violence. For example, 
the lynchings in the southern states and the race riots in the North. 

So far as these disorders are in any sense related to movements 
of population—and recent studies of race riots and lynchings indi- 
cate that they are—the study of what we have described as social 
metabolism may furnish an index, if not an explanation, of the 
phenomenon of race riots. 

One of the incidents of the growth of the community is the 
social selection and segregation of the population, and the creation, 
on the one hand, of natural social groups, and on the other, of nat- 
ural social areas. We have become aware of this process of segre- 
gation in the case of the immigrants, and particularly in the case 
of the so-called historical races, peoples who, whether immigrants 


A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER 9 


or not, are distinguished by racial marks. The Chinatowns, the 
Little Sicilies, and the other so-called “ghettos” with which stu- 
dents of urban life are familiar are special types of a more general 
species of natural area which the conditions and tendencies of city 
life inevitably produce. 

Such segregations of population as these take place, first, upon 
the basis of language and of culture, and second, upon the basis of 
race. Within these immigrant colonies and racial ghettos, however, 
other processes of selection inevitably take place which bring about 
segregation based upon vocational interests, upon intelligence, and 
personal ambition. The result is that the keener, the more ener- 
getic, and the more ambitious very soon emerge from their ghettos 
and immigrant colonies and move into an area of second immigrant 
settlement, or perhaps into a cosmopolitan area in which the mem- 
bers of several immigrant and racial groups meet and live side by 
side. More and more, as the ties of race, of language, and of culture 
are weakened, successful individuals move out and eventually find 
their places in business and in the professions, among the older 
population group which has ceased to be identified with any lan- 
guage or racial group. The point is that change of occupation, per- 
sonal success or failure—changes of economic and social status, in 
short—tend to be registered in changes of location. The physical 
or ecological organization of the community, in the long run, re- 
sponds to and reflects the occupational and the cultural. Social se- 
lection and segregation, which create the natural groups, determine 
at the same time the natural areas of the city. 

The modern city differs from the ancient in one important re- 
spect. The ancient city grew up around a fortress; the modern city 
has grown up around a market. The ancient city was the center of 
a region which was relatively self-sufficing. The goods that were 
produced were mainly for home consumption, and not for trade 
beyond the limits of the local community. The modern city, on the 


Ke) THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


other hand, is likely to be the center of a region of very highly spe- 
cialized production, with a corresponding widely extended trade 
area. Under these circumstances the main outlines of the modern 
city will be determined (1) by local geography and (2) by routes 
of transportation. 

Local geography, modified by railways and other major means 
of transportation, all connecting, as they invariably do, with the 
larger industries, furnish the broad lines of the city plan. But these 
broad outlines are likely to be overlaid and modified by another 
and a different distribution of population and of institutions, of 
which the central retail shopping area is the center. Within this 
central downtown area itself certain forms of business, the shops, 
the hotels, theaters, wholesale houses, office buildings, and banks, 
all tend to fall into definite and characteristic patterns, as if the 
position of every form of business and building in the area were 
somehow fixed and determined by its relation to every other. 

Out on the periphery of the city, again, industrial and residen- 
tial suburbs, dormitory towns, and satellite cities seem to find, in 
some natural and inevitable manner, their predetermined places. 
Within the area bounded on the one hand by the central business 
district and on the other by the suburbs, the city tends to take the 
form of a series of concentric circles. These different regions, lo- 
cated at different relative distances from the center, are character- 
ized by different degrees of mobility of the population. 

The area of greatest mobility, i.e., of movement and change of 
population, is naturally the business center itself. Here are the 
hotels, the dwelling-places of the transients. Except for the few 
permanent dwellers in these hotels, the business center, which is 
the city par excellence, empties itself every night and fills itself 
every morning. Outside the city, in this narrower sense of the 
term, are the slums, the dwelling-places of the casuals. On the edge 
of the slums there are likely to be regions, already in process of 


A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER 11 


being submerged, characterized as the “rooming-house areas,” the 
dwelling-places of bohemians, transient adventurers of all sorts, 
and the unsettled young folk of both sexes. Beyond these are the 
apartment-house areas, the region of small families and delicates- 
sen shops. Finally, out beyond all else, are the regions of duplex 
apartments and of single dwellings, where people still own their 
homes and raise children, as they do, to be sure, in the slums. 

The typical urban community is actually much more compli- 
cated than this description indicates, and there are characteristic 
variations for different types and sizes of cities. The main point, 
however, is that everywhere the community tends to conform to 
some pattern, and this pattern invariably turns out to be a constel- 
lation of typical urban areas, all of which can be geographically 
located and spacially defined. 

Natural areas are the habitats of natural groups. Every typical 
urban area is likely to contain a characteristic selection of the pop- 
ulation of the community as a whole. In great cities the divergence 
in manners, in standards of living, and in general outlook on life in 
different urban areas is often astonishing. The difference in sex and 
age groups, perhaps the most significant indexes of social life, are 
strikingly divergent for different natural areas. There are regions 
in the city in which there are almost no children, areas occupied by 
the residential hotels, for example. There are regions where the 
number of children is relatively very high: in the slums, in the 
middle-class residential suburbs, to which the newly married usu- 
ally graduate from their first honeymoon apartments in the city. 
There are other areas occupied almost wholly by young unmarried 
people, boy and girl bachelors. There are regions where people 
almost never vote, except at national elections; regions where the 
divorce rate is higher than it is for any state in the Union, and 
other regions in the same city where there are almost no divorces. 
There are areas infested by boy gangs and the athletic and political 


12 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


clubs into which the members of these gangs or the gangs them- 
selves frequently graduate. There are regions in which the suicide 
rate is excessive; regions in which there is, as recorded by statistics, 
an excessive amount of juvenile delinquency, and other regions in 
which there is almost none. 

All this emphasizes the importance of location, position, and 
mobility as indexes for measuring, describing, and eventually ex- 
plaining, social phenomena. Bergson has defined mobility as ‘‘just 
the idea of motion which we form when we think of it by itself, 
when, so to speak, from motion we abstract mobility.”’ Mobility 
measures social change and social disorganization, because social 
change almost always involves some incidental change of position 
in space, and all social change, even that which we describe as 
progress, involves some social disorganization. In the paper al- 
ready referred to, Professor Burgess points out that various forms 
of social disorganization seem to be roughly correlated with 
changes in city life that can be measured in terms of mobility. All 
this suggests a further speculation. Since so much that students of 
society are ordinarily interested in seems to be intimately related 
to position, distribution, and movements in space, it is not impossi- 
ble that all we ordinarily conceive as social may eventually be con- 
strued and described in terms of space and the changes of position 
of the individuals within the limits of a natural area; that is to say, 
within the limits of an area of competitive co-operation. Under 
such interesting conditions as these all social phenomena might 
eventually become subject to measurement, and sociology would 
become actually what some persons have sought to make it, a 
branch of statistics. 

Such a scheme of description and explanation of social phe- 
nomena, if it could be carried out without too great a simplification 
of the facts, would certainly be a happy solution of some of the 
fundamental logical and epistemological problems of sociology. 


A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER 1 3 


Reduce all social relations to relations of space and it would be pos- 
sible to apply to human relations the fundamental logic of the 
physical sciences. Social phenomena would be reduced to the ele- 
mentary movements of individuals, just as physical phenomena, 
chemical action, and the qualities of matter, heat, sound, and elec- 
tricity are reduced to the elementary movements of molecules and 
atoms. 

The difficulty is that in kinetic theories of matter, elements are 
assumed to remain unchanged. That is, of course, what we mean 
by element and elementary. Since the only changes that physical 
science reckons with are changes in space, all qualitative differ- 
ences are reduced to quantitative differences, and so made subject 
to description in mathematical terms. In the case of human and 
social relations, on the other hand, the elementary units—that is to 
say, the individual men and women who enter into these different 
combinations—are notoriously subject to change. They are so far 
from representing homogeneous units that any thoroughgoing 
mathematical treatment of them seems impossible. 

Society, as John Dewey has remarked, exists in and through 
communication, and communication involves not a translation of 
energies, such as seems to take place between individual social 
units, for example, in suggestion or imitation, two of the terms to 
which sociologists have at various times sought to reduce all social 
phenomena; but rather communication involves a transformation 
in the individuals who thus communicate. And this transformation 
goes on unceasingly with the accumulation of individual experi- 
ences in individual minds. 

If human behavior could be reduced again, as some psycholo- 
gists have sought to reduce it, to a few elementary instincts, the 
application of the kinetic theories of the physical sciences to the 
explanation of social life would be less difficult. But these instincts, 
even if they may be said to exist, are in constant process of change 


14 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


through the accumulation of memories and habits. And these 
changes are so great and continuous that to treat individual men 
and women as constant and homogeneous social units involves too 
great an abstraction. That is the reason why we are driven finally, 
in the explanation of human conduct and society, to psychology. 
In order to make comprehensible the changes which take place in 
society it is necessary to reckon with the changes which take place 
in the individual units of which society seems to be composed. The 
consequence is that the social element ceases to be the individual 
and becomes an attitude, the individual’s tendency to act. Not indi- 
viduals, but attitudes, interact to maintain social organizations and 
to produce social changes. 

This conception means that geographical barriers and physical 
distances are significant for sociology only when and where they 
define the conditions under which communication and social life 
are actually maintained. But human geography has been pro- 
foundly modified by human invention. The telegraph, telephone, 
newspaper, and radio, by converting the world into one vast whis- 
pering-gallery, have dissolved the distances and broken through 
the isolation which once separated races and people. New devices 
of communication are steadily multiplying, and incidentally com- 
plicating, social relations. The history of communication is, in a 
very real sense, the history of civilization. Language, writing, the 
printing press, the telegraph, telephone, and radio mark epochs in 
the history of mankind. But these, it needs to be said, would have 
lost most of their present significance if they had not been accom- 
panied by an increasingly wider division of labor. 

I have said that society exists in and through communication. 
By means of communication individuals share in a common experi- 
ence and maintain a common life. It is because communication is 
fundamental to the existence of society that geography and all the 
other factors that limit or facilitate communication may be said to 


A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER © 15 


enter into its structure and organization at all. Under these circum- 
stances the concept of position, of distance, and of mobility have 
come to have a new significance. Mobility is important as a socio- 
logical concept only in so far as it insures new social contact, and 
physical distance is significant for social relations only when it is 
possible to interpret it in terms of social distance. 

The social organism—and that is one of the most fundamental 
and disconcerting things about it—is made up of units capable of 
locomotion. The fact that every individual is capable of movement 
in space insures him an experience that is private and peculiar to 
himself, and this experience, which the individual acquires in the 
course of his adventures in space, affords him, in so far as it is 
unique, a point of view for independent and individual action. It is 
the individual’s possession and consciousness of a unique experi- 
ence, and his disposition to think and act in terms of it, that con- 
stitutes him finally a person. 

The child, whose actions are determined mainly by its reflexes, 
has at first no such independence and no such individuality, and is, 
as a matter of fact, not a person. 

It is this diversity in the experiences of individual men that 
makes communication necessary and consensus possible. If we 
always responded in like manner to like stimulation there would 
not be, as far as I can see, any necessity for communication, nor 
any possibility of abstract and reflective thought. The demand for 
knowledge arises from the very necessity of checking up and fund- 
ing these divergent individual experiences, and of reducing them to 
terms which make them intelligible to all of us. A rational mind is 
simply one that is capable of making its private impulses public 
and intelligible. It is the business of science to reduce the inarticu- 
late expression of our personal feelings to a common universe of 
discourse, and to create out of our private experiences an objective 
and intelligible world. 


16 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


We not only have, each of us, our private experiences, but we 
are acutely conscious of them, and much concerned to protect them 
from invasion and misinterpretation. Our self-consciousness is just 
our consciousness of these individual differences of experience, to- 
gether with a sense of their ultimate incommunicability. This is 
the basis of all our reserves, personal and racial; the basis, also, of 
our opinions, attitudes, and prejudices. If we were quite certain 
that everyone was capable of taking us, and all that we regard as 
personal to us, at our own valuation; if, in other words, we were as 
naive as children, or if, on the other hand, we were all as suggesti- 
ble and lacking in reserve as some hysterics, we should probably 
have neither persons nor society. For a certain isolation and a cer- 
tain resistance to social influences and social suggestion is just as 
much a condition of sound personal existence as of a wholesome 
society. It is just as inconceivable that we should have persons 
without privacy as it is that we should have society without persons. 

It is evident, then, that space is not the only obstacle to com- 
munication, and that social distances cannot always be adequately 
measured in purely physical terms. The final obstacle to communi- 
cation is self-consciousness. 

What is the meaning of this self-consciousness, this reserve, 
this shyness, which we so frequently feel in the presence of stran- 
gers? It is certainly not always fear of physical violence. It is the 
fear that we will not make a good impression; the fear that we are 
not looking our best; that we shall not be able to live up to our con- 
ception of ourselves, and particularly, that we shall not be able to 
live up to the conception which we should like other persons to have 
of us. We experience this shyness in the presence of our own chil- 
dren. It is only before our most intimate friends that we are able to 
relax wholly, and so be utterly undignified and at ease. It is only 
under such circumstances, if ever, that communication is complete 


A SPACIAL PATTERN AND A MORAL ORDER 17 


and that the distances which separate individuals are entirely dis- 
solved. 

This world of communication and of “distances,” in which we 
all seek to maintain some sort of privacy, personal dignity, and 
poise, is a dynamic world, and has an order and a character quite 
its own. In this social and moral order the conception which each 
of us has of himself is limited by the conception which every other 
individual, in the same limited world of communication, has of 
himself, and of every other individual. The consequence is—and 
this is true of any society—every individual finds himself in a 
struggle for status: a struggle to preserve his personal prestige, his 
point of view, and his self-respect. He is able to maintain them, 
however, only to the extent that he can gain for himself the recogni- 
tion of everyone else whose estimate seems important; that is to 
say, the estimate of everyone else who is in his set or in his society. 
From this struggle for status no philosophy of life has yet discov- 
ered a refuge. The individual who is not concerned about his status 
in some society is a hermit, even when his seclusion is a city crowd. 
The individual whose conception of himself is not at all determined 
by the conceptions that other persons have of him is probably 
insane. 

Ultimately the society in which we live invariably turns out to 
be a moral order in which the individual’s position, as well as his 
conception of himself—which is the core of his personality—is de- 
termined by the attitudes of other individuals and by the standards 
which the group uphold. In such a society the individual becomes a 
person. A person is simply an individual who has somewhere, in 
some society, social status; but status turns out finally to be a mat- 
ter of distance—social distance. 

It is because geography, occupation, and all the other factors 
which determine the distribution of population determine so irre- 
sistibly and fatally the place, the group, and the associates with 


18 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


whom each one of us is bound to live that spacial relations come to 
have, for the study of society and human nature, the importance 
which they do. 

It is because social relations are so frequently and so inevitably 
correlated with spacial relations; because physical distances, so fre- 
quently are, or seem to be, the indexes of social distances, that 
statistics have any significance whatever for sociology. And this is 
true, finally, because it is only as social and psychical facts can be 
reduced to, or correlated with, spacial facts that they can be meas- 
ured at all. 


ROBERT E. PARK 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 


I 
HUMAN NATURE AND THE CITY 


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THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 


Human nature, as English vernacular speech uses it, is a very 
paradoxical term. On the one hand it is the culprit explaining, if 
not justifying, acts that are wicked and lapses that are weak. 
When our priests and pastors are disappointed in us, human nature 
is our alibi. It nullifies the work of pacifists and prohibitionists, 
and might almost be defined as that with which fanatical reformers 
fail to reckon. On the other hand, human nature is sometimes a 
beautiful discovery and a pleasant surprise. When queer, fierce, 
and savage folk act in a comprehensible fashion we call them hu- 
man as an honorific ascription. When human nature was discoy- 
ered in the slaves it led ineluctably to their emancipation. Seen in 
the untouchables of India, it is at this moment in process of raising 
their status. To find them human is good and leads men to praise 
and draw near. 

In the attempt to sharpen the denotation of the term, which is 
the object of this paper, it is proposed to consider: how the expe- 
rience of human nature arises; some obstacles to its realization; 
the relation of heredity to heritage; with a briefer mention of the 
mutability of human nature and the problem of individuality. 


I 


There is, then, first of all, this question: How did you and I get 
to be human, and how do others come to seem to be human? Every 
careful reader of Cooley and Mead has long been familiar with a 
clear answer to the first part of the question. One’s consciousness 
of one’s self arises within a social situation as a result of the way 
in which one’s actions and gestures are defined by the actions and 
gestures of others. We not only judge ourselves by others, but we 


2I 


22 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


literally judge that we are selves as the result of what others do and 
say. We become human, to ourselves, when we are met and an- 
swered, opposed and blamed, praised and encouraged. The process 
is mediate, not immediate. It is the result of the activity of the 
constructive imagination, which is still the best term by which to 
denote the redintegrative behavior in which there is a present sym- 
bol with a past reference and a future consequence. 

The process results in a more or less consistent picture of how 
we appear, the specific content of which is found in the previously 
experienced social gestures. Not that all men treat us alike. It is 
trite to say that we have many selves, but it is profoundly true, and 
these are as many as the persons with whom we have social rela- 
tions. If Babbit be husband, father, vestryman, school trustee, 
rotarian, and clandestine lover he obviously plays several different 
roles. These réles, or personalities, or phases of his personality 
are built up into a more or less consistent picture of how one ap- 
pears in the eyes of others. We are conscious of ourselves if, when, 
and only when, we are conscious that we are acting like another. 
These réles are differently evaluated. Some have a high, others a 
low, rating, and one’s comparative estimation of the worth of his 
membership in his several groups has a social explanation, in spite 
of the fact that many would seek a physiological explanation. 

As a banker or realtor Babbit may stand high, though as a 
golfer he may be a dub; his church status may be low and his club 
self high, and so through the list. The movements, vocabulary, 
habits, and emotions he employs in these different réles are all ac- 
cessible to careful study and accurate record, but the point can 
hardly be obvious since it is so widely neglected that the explana- 
tion of these habits and phrases and gestures that accompany the 
several réles is to be sought chiefly in the study of the group tradi- 
tions and social expectations of the several institutions where he 
belongs. No accessible inventory of his infantile impulses would 


a — 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 23 


enable the prediction of the various behavior complexes concerned 
in the several personal réles. Moreover, whatever the list of per- 
sonalities or rdles may be, there is always room for one more and, 
indeed, for many more. When war comes Babbit will probably be 
a member of the committee of public defense. He may become 
executive officer of a law enforcement league yet to be formed. He 
may divorce his wife or elope with his stenographer or misuse the 
mails and become a federal prisoner in Leavenworth. Each expe- 
rience will mean a new réle with new personal attitudes and a new 
axiological conception of himself. 

One’s conception of one’s self is, therefore, the result of an im- 
agined construct of a réle in a social group depending upon the de- 
fining gestures of others and involving in the most diverse types of 
personality the same physiological mechanisms and organs. Both 
convict and pillar of society, churchman and patron of bootleggers, 
employ receptors such as eyes, ears, and nose, and effectors includ- 
ing arms, legs, and tongue. The way in which these are organized 
is, however, only to be investigated by studying the collective as- 
pects of behavior. Your personality, as you conceive it, results 
from the defining movements of others. 

And if this be true it is a fortiori certain that our conception of 
other selves is likewise a social resultant. The meaning of the 
other’s acts and gestures is put together into an imagined unity of 
organization which is our experience or conception of what the 
other one is. In Cooley’s phrase, the solid facts of social life are the 
imaginations we construct of persons. It is not the blood and bones 
of my friend that I think of when I recall him as such. It is rather 
the imagined responses which I can summon as the result of my ex- 
perience with him. Should misunderstandings arise and friendship 
be shattered, his nervous organization and blood count would prob- 
ably remain unaltered, though to me he would be an utterly differ- 
ent person. Whether he be my friend or my enemy depends ax- 


24 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


iologically upon my imagination concerning him. In order to deal 
with this material we must imagine imaginations. 

The ability to conceive of human nature thus always involves 
the ability to take the role of another in imagination and to dis- 
cover in this manner qualities that we recognize in ourselves. We 
regard as inhuman or non-human all conduct which is so strange 
that we cannot readily imagine ourselves engaging in it. We speak 
of inhuman cruelty when atrocities are so hard-heartedly cruel that 
we cannot conceive of ourselves as inflicting them. We speak of 
inhuman stupidity if the action is so far remote from intelligent 
behavior that we feel entirely foreign to it. And conversely, in the 
behavior of non-human animals and, in extreme cases, with regard 
to plants and even inanimate objects, there is a tendency to attrib- 
ute unreflectively human motives and feelings. This accounts for 
the voluminous literature of the “nature fakers.” To sympathize 
with the appealing eyes of a pet dog, or the dying look of a sick 
cat, or to view the last gasps of a slain deer is to have just this ex- 
perience. Wheeler, a foremost authority on the behavior of in- 
sects, writes of “awareness” of the difference between her eggs on 
the part of a mother wasp, and of the “interest” that other insects 
take in the welfare of their progeny. The fables and animal stories 
of primitive and of civilized peoples could not have been spoken 
but for this tendency of our imagination to attribute human quali- 
ties when some behavior gives a clue of similarity to our own inner 
life. Examples of this process could be indefinitely cited from St. 
Francis preaching sermons to his “brother wolf” and to the birds, 
the romantic poets who speak to the dawn and get messages from 
the waves, the lover whose pathetic fallacy sees impatience in the 
drooping of the rose when Maud is late to her tryst, all the way to 
Opal, who loved the fir tree because he had an “understanding 
soul.” The experience is entirely normal. The most unromantic 
mechanist may, in emotional moments, be carried unreflectively 


Oh EE 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE e45 


into an unwitting and immediate attribution of human impulses 
and motives to non-human objects. 

Human nature is, therefore, that quality which we attribute 
to others as the result of introspective behavior. There is involved 
a certain revival of our own past, with its hopes, fears, loves, an- 
gers and other subjective experiences which in an immediate and 
unreflective way we read into the behavior of another. The Ger- 
man concept ein fiuhlung while not exactly the same notion, includes 
the process here denoted. It is more than sympathy; it is “empa- 
thy.” 

Now the process wherein this takes place is primarily emo- 
tional. The mechanism is operative in all real art. In our modern 
life the drama and the novel are largely responsible for the broad- 
ening of our sympathies and the enlarging of our axiological fra- 
ternities. There is some plausibility to the disturbing remark of a 
colleague of the writer who declared that one can learn more about 
human nature today from literature than from science, so called. 
If federal regulation continues to increase it might be well to pass a 
law forcing all parents of small children to read The Way of All 
Flesh. Books on criminology are valuable, but so is The House of 
the Dead. Culprits, offenders, and violators of our code are human. 
but in order that we may realize the fact it is necessary for us to 
see their behavior presented concretely so that we can understand 
and, understanding, forgive. “There, but for the grace of God, 
goes John Wesley.” Perhaps you and I might have been murderers. 

There is a curious, and at first, puzzling, difference in the atti- 
tude of two groups of specialists concerning the nature and the 
mental capacity of preliterate or so-called “primitive” peoples. 
The anthropologists and sociologists of the present day are almost 
unanimous in their opinion that so-called “savages” do not differ in 
their mental capacity or emotional possibility from modern civil- 
ized peoples, taken by and large and as a whole. Contemporary 


26 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


biologists, on the other hand, are in many cases very reluctant to 
admit this, and many of them categorically and insistently deny 
it. Now it cannot be the result of logical conclusions from research 
methods of scientific men in the case of the biologists, for their 
work is confined chiefly to anatomical structures and the physiol- 
ogy of segments. Their conclusions arise from other than focal 
interests. 

On the face of it the situation is curious. The biologist has 
long ago demonstrated the surprisingly essential identity of the 
nervous system in all mammals. The rat or the dog is almost as 
useful for the vivisectional investigation of the human nervous sys- 
tem as a human subject would be. Element for element, the ner- 
vous system of the sheep is the same as in man, the differences be- 
ing quantitative. A fortiori, the nervous system of the Eskimo and 
the German are not significantly different. The biologist works 
with identical material, but concludes by assuming great and sig- 
nificant differences between the different races. The anthropologist 
and sociologist works with strongly contrasted phenomena. He dis- 
cusses and studies polyandry, witchcraft, and shamanism, socially 
approved infanticide, and cannibalism, and such divergent prac- 
tices that one would expect him to posit much greater differences 
than even his biologist colleague would assert. An investigator 
from Mars (one may always invoke this disinterested witness) 
would probably expect the biologist who studies identical forms to 
be inclined to rate them all alike, and might infer that the anthro- 
pologist who studies such divergent customs would place them in a 
contrasting series. 

The explanation seems fairly apparent. The biologist deals 
objectively, thinking in terms of dissections and physical struc- 
tures. The anthropologist deals sympathetically and imaginative- 
ly. His work takes him into the field where he gets behind the 
divergencies and finds that the objects of his study have pride, love, 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 27 


fear, curiosity, and the other human qualities which he recognizes 
in himself, the differences being only in the form and expression. 
Thus, by an introspective sympathy, he comes to know them as 
human. 

The limitations of introspective psychology need no elabora- 
tion in these days when extreme behaviorism has thrown out the 
infant with the bath. The uncontrolled exaggerations that arose 
out of the unverifiable imaginings of introspectionists brought 
about a violent reaction not wholly undeserved. It is not proposed 
here to make even a disguised plea for introspective methods. The 
essential point is not the desirability, but the inevitability, of just 
this type of imagination by which alone we recognize others as hu- 
man, and which ultimately rests on our ability to identify in others 
what we know to be true in ourselves. 

Imaginative sympathy enables us to recognize human nature 
when we see it and even to assume it where it is not. Conversely, 
when the behavior is so different that we lack the introspective clue 
we find difficulty in calling it human. Such limitation is more true 
of our emotional moments than of calm and reflective periods. Re- 
cent questions on race prejudice reveal the fact that, in the Ameri- 
can group which was investigated, the most violent race prejudice, 
the greatest social distance, existed in respect of the Turks. It was 
further revealed that most of those who felt a strong aversion 
against Turks had never seen a Turk, but they had heard and read 
and believed stories of their behavior which account for the atti- 
tude. One story describes Turkish soldiers stripping a captured 
pregnant woman, betting on the sex of the foetus, and disembowel- 
ling her to see who should win the money. Such conduct we call 
inhuman since we cannot imagine ourselves as engaging in it under 
any circumstances. If we are to regard all members of the genus 
homo as human it is essential that the traditions of all races and 
their mores be sufficiently like our own to enable us to understand 


28 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


them sympathetically. It is easy to show that Americans who go to 
Turkey and understand the Turks not only find them human, but 
often praise and admire them. And all because the emphatic im- 
agination enables us to play their part and understand their mo- 
tives. 
7 II 

The chief limitation to the imaginative sympathy enabling us 
to call others human is the phenomenon which Sumner calls ethno- 
centrism. By an extension of the term, which is here presented with 
a prayer for indulgence, we may distinguish three types of ethno- 
centrism which are in effect three degrees of the phenomenon. 
Ethnocentrism, as ordinarily used, is the emotional attitude which 
places high value on one’s own customs and traditions and belittles 
all others, putting as least valuable those that differ most. The uni- 
versality of ethnocentrism is evidenced from the discovery that all 
preliterate peoples who have considered the question have worked 
out the answer in the same terms. It is obvious to a Nordic that the 
African and Mongol are inferior to himself, and hardly less obvious 
that the Mediterranean is intermediate between his own highness 
and the low-browed tribes of the tropic forests. But for more than 
a generation it has been familiar to specialists that Eskimos, Zulus, 
and Pueblos have exactly the same feeling toward us. The customs 
with which we are familiar are best. Mores which differ most wide- 
ly arise from the social life of an inferior people. We are supremely 
human; they are only partially so. To Herbert Spencer the high- 
headed and proud-hearted Kaffirs—who would in their turn have 
spoken contemptuously of his bald head and his helplessness in the 
forest—were intermediate between the chimpanzee and the Eng- 
lish. They were only partly human. The writer of these lines once 
made what he felt to be a very good speech to an audience of naked 
savages, speaking in their own tongue with certain native proverbs 
and allusions to their folk-tales. The reward for this skill was the 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 29 


frank and surprised admission that at least one white man was in- 
telligent and could make a decent argument like any other human 
being. The Texas farmers whose province had been invaded by an 
agricultural colony of Bohemians used to refer to them as hardly 
human since their women worked in the fields and often the whole 
family went barefooted. Ethnocentric narrowness includes the 
group in sympathy-proof tegument which blinds men to the human 
qualities of differing peoples. 

The second form of ethnocentrism is harder to establish, but 
must be asserted. It is seen in its quintessence in the writings of 
McDougall and his followers. Human nature consists of instincts 
and if a list of these be called for they are promptly produced. The 
instinct of warfare is axiomatic and the proof is found in the mili- 
tary history of our people. But the list of instincts turns out to be 
merely a renaming and hypostatization of our own social customs. 
The instincts have been set down in a fixed list because men failed 
to distinguish between their immediate social heritage and the in- 
born tendencies of their infants. It is therefore a kind of scientific 
ethnocentrism, which conceives as native and human that which is 
acquired and social and leads to the conclusion that those with 
widely different customs must either have some instinct omitted 
from their repertory, as McDougall plainly says of some of the in- 
terior Borneo tribes, or else (and this comes to the same thing) 
they have these instincts in a different degree from those which we 
have received from our forebears; that is to say, the customs of 
other people, if they are sufficiently different, are due to the fact 
that their nature is not quite like ours. They are really not quite 
human, or, to say the least, differently human. 

The third variety of ethnocentrism is somewhat more subtle. 
It is the limitation due to language. It is the penalty for having to 
speak in one language without knowledge of the others. The dreary 
list of sentiments, feelings, and emotions in some books is written 


30 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


as if all the words in the world were English words. We make 
sharp distinctions between fear, terror, and awe and, forgetting 
that these are limited to our vocabulary, expect to find the funda- . 
mental traits of human nature adequately described thereby. If 
we read German we may become interested in the distinction be- 
tween Mut and Tapferkeit. Not knowing Japanese, we lose the 
precious insight which their idioms would give us in the inability of 
their language to make a neuter noun the subject of a transitive 
verb. A yet unpublished statement by a most eminent psychologist, 
written three months ago, is concerned with a discussion of “what 
emotions do” and “what intelligence does,” in the behavior of hu- 
man beings. No Japanese would make such an egregious blunder 
—not necessarily because of different capacity for analysis, but be- 
cause his mother-tongue is incapable of such erroneous metaphys- 
ical reification. Linguistic ethnocentrism, if we may so name this, 
would disappear if our minds were competent and our years enough 
to allow us to know all the languages of the earth; but until utopia 
comes the handicap can be partly overcome by a conscious recog- 
nition of its existence and by an obstinate and repeated attempt to 
get outside of the limitations of our own etymology into a sympa- 
thetic appreciation of the forms of speech of stranger men. 

Ethnocentrism, then, is essentially narrowness. It is enthusi- 
asm for our own due to ignorance of others. It is an appreciation 
of what we have and a depreciation of what differs. It is essentially 
a lacking of sympathetic dramatization of the point of view of an- 
other. It must be transcended if we are really to know what pro- 
tean varieties human nature may assume. 


III 


From the question of how human nature is recognized it is a 
natural transition to the problem of how it is constituted. The 
current form of most interest is an old problem still exciting lively 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 31 


interest; the relation of inherited tendencies to social organization; 
the relation of instincts to institutions; heredity, to environment : 
nature, to nurture. 

Current discussions of instinct reveal surprising initial agree- 
ments among authors who seem to be, and who imagine themselves 
to be, very different. Allport rejects instincts and McDougall has 
a fixed list (subject to periodical revision), yet both Allport and 
McDougall agree in making an uncriticized assumption that the 
customs and institutions of men are the outgrowth of the infantile 
and adolescent inherited impulses. Thus warfare is ascribed to the 
instinct of pugnacity, to which statement Allport objects and as- 
serts that it is rather due to the conditioning of the prepotent re- 
flex of struggling. It would be easy to make a long list of citations, 
but at random one may mention Parker, Trotter, and Bartlett. To 
such men the key to the understanding lies in an adequate genetic 
psychology. If we could only get at the infant and chart all his ini- 
tial responses and impulses, they feel the problem of social organ- 
ization would be solved. 

This paper is written under the conviction that sociology and 
social psychology must rely chiefly on facts from the collective life 
of societies for their material. Two fields of inquiry, among many 
study of preliterate peoples and the other is the consideration of 
others, can be cited as providing relevant material. One is the 
modern isolated religious groups. There is found among primitive 
people such a protean variety of social and cultural organization, 
such various forms of religious, political, and family life, that it 
would seem impossible to account for them on the basis of definite 
instincts. When one society refuses entirely to produce children, 
another tribe kills all unbetrothed girls, still another practices in- 
fant cannibalism, while yet others manifest tender solicitude for all 
their children, and when unto these are added accounts of bizarre 
marriage customs and religious conceptions and tendencies, it is 


32 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


hard to see how the conception can be carried through without as- 
suming different instincts in each tribe. 

The isolated religious sects of the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries are even more valuable to the theorist since the complete 
history of many of the customs is known, an advantage not pos- 
sessed by the ethnologist as a rule. It is possible to describe in de- 
tail a time when there were no Quakers, Dunkards, Mormons, 
Shakers, or Perfectionists. The rise of polygamy can be traced in 
Mormonism, and the abandonment of the marriage relation among 
the Shakers can be dated and described. 

McDougall has seen this difficulty and has met it with a cer- 
tain naiveté. He has only to assume that strikingly different cus- 
toms have been produced by peoples with differing instincts, or 
with instincts of different degrees of strength or intensity. The 
Shakers would therefore be adequately explained by assuming a 
selection of people who had no sex instincts, or very weak ones. 
The peaceful tribes would be those lacking the instinct of pugnac- 
ity, which leads him to the logical conclusion that the French have 
a different instinct from the English, and to the popular psychology 
which gives to the Anglo-Saxon the instinct for representative gov- 
ernment which the Italians and Orientals are assumed to lack. 

Thus the assumption that instincts produce customs turns out 
to be a mere tautology, and the human race disappears as a biolog- 
ical species. A zodlogist who describes the migrating salmon or the 
breeding habits of seal or the incubating instincts of penguins is 
dealing with a single species whose members exhibit a universality 
of action. But if this formulation of instincts be followed out, ev- 
ery tribe or race must be assumed to have different instincts, and 
the basic error of the whole instinct psychology stands revealed. 
Then instinct merely becomes another name for custom. 

Were all our knowledge of human nature limited to a single 
flash of information through a given moment of time it might be 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 33 


impossible to criticize this serious error. Fortunately, there is his- 
tory. The Mormons began without polygamy, lived through a long 
period when plural marriage was customary, and then, through the 
stress of circumstances, abolished the practice. The English colo- 
nies have circled the earth, while the French remain at home drink- 
ing in the cafés of Paris, bit there was a time when the French colo- 
nies occupied vast territories in the New World, and there is ample 
evidence of a considerable settlement of French both in Canada 
and Louisiana. The warlike Nordics dreamed of a heaven of war- 
fare and slaughter, but when Norway seceded from Sweden some- 
thing went wrong with their fighting instinct and, obstinately 
enough, they settled the matter by a peaceable arrangement. If 
customs change, and they do, and if instincts cause customs, then 
instincts change as often as the customs. But a changing instinct is 
no instinct, for instincts by hypothesis are constant. 

The problem of social origins is not solved, but the history of 
many customs and institutions is in our possession and it is quite 
certain that the whole concatenation of unique and unrepeated cir- 
cumstances must be invoked to explain the creation of any one of 
them. And when once the organization appears, the new members 
of the group who grow up within it or who are initiated into it take 
on the group attitudes as représentations collectives, securing all 
their fundamental satisfactions in ways which the group prescribes. 
The true order, then, lies in exactly the reverse of the instinct-to- 
institution formulation. Instead of the instincts of individuals be- 
ing the cause of our customs and institutions, it is far truer to say 
it is the customs and institutions which explain the individual be- 
havior so long called instinctive. Instincts do not create customs. 
Customs create instincts, for the putative instincts of human beings 
are always learned and never native. 

Exactly when human nature begins is a problem. But that it 
does, in each individual, have a definite beginning is an axiom. The 


34 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


newborn has not a developed personality. He has neither wishes, 
desires, nor ambitions. He does not dream of angels nor think the 
long thoughts of youth. He acquires a personality. He does not 
acquire his heredity. He acquires his personality. A quarter of a 
century ago this acquisition was shown by Cooley to happen in the 
first groups, the primary groups, into which he is received. He be- 
comes a person when, and because, others are emotional toward 
him. He can become a person when he reaches that period, not 
always exactly datable, when the power of imagination enables him 
to reconstruct the past and build an image of himself and others. 


IV 


An inescapable corollary of the foregoing is the mutability of 
human nature. Despite the chauvinists, the cynics, and the abso- 
lutists of every sort, human nature can be changed. Indeed, if one 
speaks with rigorous exactness, human nature never ceases to be 
altered; for the crises in life and nature, the interaction and diffu- 
sion of exotic cultures, and the varying temperaments possessed by 
the troops of continuously appearing and gradually begotten chil- 
dren force the conclusion that human nature is in a continual state 
of flux. We cannot change it by passing a law, nor by a magical act 
of the will, nor by ordering and forbidding, nor by day-dreaming 
and revery, but human nature can be changed. To defend militar- 
ism on the ground that man is a fighter and the fighting instinct 
cannot be changed is merely to misinterpret and to rationalize an 
important fact; that the custom of warfare is very old and can be 
abolished only gradually and with great difficulty. To assume that 
the drinking habits of a people or their economic structure or even 
the family organization is immutably founded upon the fixed pat- 
terns of human nature is to confuse nature and custom. What we 
call the stable elements of human nature are in truth the social atti- 
tudes of individual persons, which in turn are the subjective as- 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 35 


pects of long-established group attitudes whose inertia must be 
reckoned with but whose mutability cannot be denied. Having 
been established through a long period of time, and appearing to 
the youth as normal and natural, they seem to be a part of the or- 
dered universe. In reality they are continually being slightly al- 
tered and may at any time be profoundly modified by a sufficiently 
serious crisis in the life of the group. 

The history of social movements is but a record of changing 
human nature. The antislavery movement, the woman’s move- 
ment, the temperance movement, the interestingly differing youth 
movements in Germany, China, and America—these are all natu- 
ral phenomena in the field of sociology, and are perhaps most ac- 
curately described as the process of change which human nature 
undergoes in response to the pressure of unwelcome events giving 
rise to restlessness and vague discontent. Such movements, when 
they generate leaders and develop institutions passing on to legal 
and political changes, create profound alterations of the mores and 
thoroughly transform not only the habits of a people and their na- 
ture as they live together but also the basic conception of what 
constitutes human nature. The present conception in the West of 
the nature of woman, including her mental capacity and ability to 
do independent creative work, is profoundly different from the con- 
ception which anybody entertained in the generations before the 
woman’s movement began. 

But for the limitations of space the problem of individuality 
and character should receive extended treatment in this discussion. 
This being impossible, a brief word must suffice. There is so much 
of controversy here and so much of confusion that many seem to 
be hypnotized by mere phrases. It is much too simple to say that 
the individual and society are one, for it is difficult to know which 
one. The heretic, the rebel, the martyr, the criminal—these all 
stand out as individuals surely not at one with society. Nor does 


36 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


it seem adequate merely to say that the person is an individual 
who has status in a group. For it does not appear that before the 
acquisition of status the individual has any existence. Certainly if 
he has he does not know it. The conception which it would be prof- 
itable to develop lies in the direction of the assumption that out of 
multiple social relations which clash and conflict in one’s experi- 
ence the phenomenon of individuality appears. The claims of the 
various social groups and relations and obligations made on a 
single person must be umpired and arbitrated, and here appears 
the phenomenon of conscience and that of will. The arbitrament 
results in a more or less complete organization and ordering of the 
differing réles, and this organization of the subjective social atti- 
tudes is perhaps the clearest conception of what we call character. 
The struggles of the tempted and the strivings of courageous men 
appear, when viewed from the outside, to be the pull of inconsistent 
groups, and so indeed they are. But to you and me who fight and 
hold on, who struggle amid discouragement and difficulties, there 
is always a feeling that the decision is personal and individual. 
Someone has been the umpire. When the mother says, “Come into 
the house,” and Romeo whispers, “(Come out onto the balcony,” 
it is Romeo who prevails, but it is Juliet who decides. 

Individuality may then, from one standpoint, be thought of 
as character, which is the subjective aspect of the world the indi- 
vidual lives in. The influences are social influences, but they differ 
in strength and importance. When completely ordered and organ- 
ized with the conflicting claims of family, friends, clubs, business, 
patriotism, religion, art and science all ordered, adjudicated, and 
unified, we have not passed out of the realm of social influence, 
but we have not remained where the social group, taken separately, 
can be invoked to explain the behavior. Individuality is a synthesis 
and ordering of these multitudinous forces. 

Here human nature reaches its ultimate development. Henley, 


| 
; 


THE NATURE OF HUMAN NATURE 37 


lying weak and sick, suffering great pain, called out that he was 
captain of his soul. To trace back the social antecedents of such a 
heroic attitude is profitable and germane, but it is never the whole 
story until we have contemplated this unique soul absolutely un- 
duplicated anywhere in the universe—the result, if you like, of a 
thousand social influences, but still undubitably individual. It was 
Henley who uttered that cry. That you and I so recognize him and 
appreciate him only means that we also have striven. We know 
him and understand him because of our own constructive, sympa- 
thetic imagination. He who admires a masterpiece has a right to 
say, I also am an artist. 


ELLSWORTH FARIS 
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 


THE PROBLEM OF PERSONALITY IN THE URBAN 
ENVIRONMENT 


I am assuming that habit formation is mainly responsible for 
the behavior traits of individuals, races, and nationalities, that 
these traits change much as fashions in dress, and almost as freely, 
only within decades and centuries instead of seasonally, and that 
dispositional traits, while they certainly do exist, are not distrib- 
uted in blocks to national and racial groups, but rather to individu- 
als in various proportions, so that there is an assortment of tem- 
peraments in all groups, seeming uniformities like the phlegm of 
the Englishman and the explosiveness of the Italian being mainly 
due to habit formation and the tendency of all dispositions to con- 
form themselves to the prevailing fashion. 

There are, in fact, two great techniques for getting our effects 
—composure and agitation. Each has its merits, and any group 
may be predominantly conditioned in either direction. I shall 
speak presently of the Poles, a Slavic group, which is more agi- 
tated, if anything, than the Italians—has, in fact, been called the 
“Dancing Slav,” Slavus Saltans, in punning allusion to some statue 
in Italy, but I conceive that with a different historical conditioning 
the Poles would have become as composed as the American Indian. 
It is idle, indeed, to speak confidently of biologically determined 
behavior tendencies in races and nationalities as a working idea 
when we see daily that the social distance and the disparity of atti- 
tudes between American parents and children—or, shall we say, 
grandparents and grandchildren—is, generally speaking, greater 
than the same differences between nationalities—say, the Swedes 
and the English, or even the Americans and the Japanese. A New 
York father was reported as saying he was gratified by the fact 
that his children still spoke to him. 


38 


PERSONALITY IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT 39 


Now, it appears that behavior traits and their totality as repre- 
sented by the personality are the outcome of a series of definitions 
of situations with the resulting reactions and their fixation in a 
body of attitudes or psychological sets. Obviously, the institutions 
of a society, beginning with the family, form the character of its 
members almost as the daily nutrition forms their bodies, but this 
is for everybody, and the unique attitudes of the individual and his 
unique personality are closely connected with certain incidents or 
critical experiences particular to himself, defining the situation, 
giving a psychological set, and often determining the whole life- 
direction. An example of this was given two winters ago by the 
scenic artist, Bakst, who narrated a circumstance leading to his 
artistic conditioning. At the age of four he was taken by his parents 
in St. Petersburg to hear Madame Patti. In the course of the opera 
the prima donna drank poison and fell. At this point the boy pro- 
tested uproariously, and after the performance he was taken to 
Patti’s dressing room to be reassured. She took him on her knee 
and with her make-up materials drew long black brows and long red 
streaks on his cheeks. At home they began to wash his face, but he 
wouldn’t have it. He went to bed with the make-up on, and, psy- 
chologically, this make-up was never washed out; his artistic style 
was modeled after the make-up of his own face. 

I am the more impressed with the incident in the life of the in- 
dividual since reading the records of a number of psychoneurotic 
personalities. It is surprising to find how many persons are condi- 
tioned to a life of invalidism by a single incident, and apparently 
the same principle is valid in normal life. I believe many of you 
will be able to confirm this in your own experience. 

But an incident may contain a totally different meaning for 
different persons; its effect in a given case will depend on the total- 
ity of the experience of the individual and the type of organization 
of the experience in memory at the moment. We know certainly, 


40 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


from the cases of dual and multiple personality, if in no other way, 
that memories tend to arrange themselves in blocks or groupings, 
each group maintaining a certain integrity, somewhat as we arrange 
studies in a curriculum, and I have called any group of experiences 
hanging together in the memory, within the totality of experience, 
an experience complex. The dependence of these experience group- 
ings on our institutions and customs is also evident, but, since the 
institutions are eventually formed by the wishes, it is more im- 
portant to view this problem from the standpoint of the wishes, 
meaning by this nothing Freudian, but simply what men want. I 
expect that much light will be thrown on this matter of the experi- 
ence complex and its relation to the development of personality by 
the surveys being carried on by Park, Burgess, Bogardus, and oth- 
ers, and by the documents and life-records which the social psy- 
chologists are assembling. 

But the human race lives by tradition, largely. The point which 
Child emphasizes in his great work, that the organism is never 
again the same after a given stimulus, holds with us also, and over 
a vast stretch of time. Our behavior is historically, as well as con- 
temporaneously, conditioned, and I will devote the middle part of 
my present time to an outline of the process by which certain expe- 
rience complexes and behavior reactions were historically devel- 
oped in a selected national group, namely, the Poles; more specifi- 
cally, the Polish immigrant., 

The Polish peasant who comes as immigrant to America has as 
one element of his background perhaps the most elaborately devel- 
oped and hierarchized aristocracy of Europe. The Polish state was 
originally a nobility state, none participating who did not do mili- 
tary service. Immigrants from the West, Germans and Jews, were 
excluded, and consequently there was no bourgeoisie. Other classes 
than the nobles were treated as “political minors.” The nobility 
family was an agnatic organization—kinship through the male line 


PERSONALITY IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT 1 


only. Military life, achievement, glory, distinguished males. There 
was great sensibility as to relationship and status. Every individual 
was expected to know for many past generations all the connections 
between his family and others, and at least the most important 
connections of the families connected with his own. While the 
peasants did not enter this world, it was, or became latterly, a 
region for phantasying, the more so as some peasants had been 
made petty nobles on the field of battle. You may see them now 
sitting somewhat apart at social gatherings, often poorer than the 
others, but wearing gloves. 

It was also a fundamental tendency of the great nobility to 
avoid all positive political obligations usually imposed by the state. 
They held themselves above the state and above the law, but 
wished to give service voluntarily, felt an obligation to make meri- 
torious and distinguished sacrifices, though repudiating any theory 
of compulsion. The king of Poland was a sovereign presiding over 
sovereigns. In this connection the Polish nobleman developed a 
great ostentation, magnificence, grandiosity, and graciousness. Also 
certain bizarre, excessive, and almost incomprehensible attitudes. 
It is hardly too much to say that to the Pole the only meritorious 
actions are those of a supererogatory nature: not demanded and 
not useful. Notoriously they have fought everybody’s battles more 
consistently than their own. I have in mind John Sobieski and the 
Turks; the fact that the Polish kings were obliged to fight the Teu- 
tonic order largely with Bohemian mercenaries; the exploitation of 
the Poles by Napoleon; the behavior of the Polish regiments in the 
Prussian army during the Franco-German War, who took a French 
position in an attempt so suicidal that German tacticians would not 
engage their own troops, on the sole condition of being permitted 
to wear on this occasion the white eagle, forbidden emblem of 
Poland. These traits were not produced by the partition of Poland; 


42 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


they were, rather, the cause of the partition. But the partition 
added a frenzy to their expression. 

Unconsciously, then, and consciously all classes of Polish soci- 
ety have been deeply marked by this distinction-seeking of the 
nobility. A large Polish estate, say that of the Lubomirskis, may 
have as many as 1,500 servants, and these will arrange themselves 
in twenty or more categories of superior and inferior. Scholars and 
artists are affected in the same way. I have the autobiography of a 
distinguished Pole, himself of the small nobility, whose life has 
running through it as the constant motif either to penetrate the 
great nobility directly or to find an equivalent distinction in some 
activity. First, marriage was arranged with a daughter of the great 
nobility, but that was abandoned because it would not get him in. 
Then followed art; then, the salvation complex; and finally, schol- 
arship. The superb achievements of the Poles in art and science 
might have been accomplished otherwise, but these achievements 
always seem, in a way, surrogates for that distinction which was 
originally nobility of family. With the Pole it is not utility selec- 
tion, not so greatly hedonistic selection, but mainly recognition 
selection. Almost any sort of distinction seems pleasing to a Pole. 
I read at one time the manuscript of a Polish philosopher who was 
essaying a volume in the English language, and I was of course, 
reading it solely with regard to the correctness of his language. 
But at one point I remarked: “You know, I do not in the least 
understand what you are talking about.” I felt that this was some- 
what blunt, but it was a source of pleasure to him. If I did not 
understand it, it would do very well. 

A logician in Warsaw addressed an audience of perhaps a hun- 
dred, beginning early in the evening and continuing until 3 A.M. 
Gradually the audience faded away until only three remained, and 
the reaction of the lecturer to this was distinctly pleasurable. Not 


PERSONALITY IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT 43 


many lecturers, he said, could talk above the heads of so many 
people for so long a time. 

When the movement for enlightenment began to affect the 
peasant, among his first reactions were those seeking distinction. 
There were, for example, several newspapers established for the 
benefit of the peasant, and communications from him were encour- 
aged. I examined at one time about 8,000 of these, and more than 
half of them were in poetry. There is hardly a peasant who can 
write at all who does not write poetry. I remember also reading a 
letter written from Mukden to a newspaper by a Polish soldier 
during the Russian-Japanese War. At the end he said he had not 
written to his wife, but hoped that this communication would come 
to her attention. At another time I was in the office of the Gazeta 
Swiateczna in Warsaw when a young peasant entered and re- 
proached the editor for not printing a poem he had sent in. The 
editor pleaded that the poem was not sufficiently meritorious. The 
writer finally admitted this, but added that there had been a death 
in his community, and that he wished the editor to mention the fact 
and say that he had his information from the caller, in order that 
he might at any rate see his name in print. Narration is developed 
to the point of an art among the Poles; many of them are fascinat- 
ing raconteurs. I had as guests two famous raconteurs, one older 
and one younger. The older held the table spellbound for two 
hours. Finally the younger, after some vain attempts at interrup- 
tion, appealed to me in a whisper and said: “We shall never stop 
him unless we change the room.”’ And we changed the room. 

Now the indirect aristocratic conditioning of the peasant who 
comes to us as immigrant is not nearly so deep as the conditioning 
by family and community, and that is a point which I do not need 
to elaborate here. Nevertheless the familial attitudes tend to disap- 
pear rapidly in America, while the aristocratic ones tend to blos- 
som out. At first the boy writes home: “Dear parents, I have work. 


A4 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


I send you 75 rubles. I can send you much money.” After some 
months, or a year, he writes: “Dear parents, I like to send you 
money, but you ask too much.” A boy in South Chicago writes: 
“Dear parents, I kiss your hands, and I inform you that it is diffi- 
cult to live without a wife. Will you send me a girl, one suitable to 
my condition, for in America there is not one single orderly girl.” 
The parents reply that they are sending one of the Malinowski 
girls. The boy kisses their hands again, writes some news, and at 
the end of the letter inquires: “Dear parents, are you sending 
Stanislawa, the taller one, or Hanka, the shorter one?” This boy 
was killed in the steel works before his bride started, but another 
boy, who had been here longer, writes: ‘Dear parents, you speak 
of marriage, but in America it is not necessary to marry at all.” 

On the other hand, the aristocratic attitudes which there were 
in the hinterland of consciousness tend here to enter more actively 
the region of phantasying, especially since America is conceived as 
the land of absolute freedom. Frequently, therefore, the immigrant 
boy appears here with somewhat grandiose expectations and ges- 
tures. A Polish youth writes: 

When I came to America I brought nine extra suits of clothes.... . My 
first job was in a factory where they painted ribbons for typewriters. .... 
My ten suits were soon spoiled, for I was ashamed to wear overalls. Finally 
the only suit I had was a Prince Albert affair, and I went to work in that. I 
remember passing a line of fellow-workers, leaning against a wall and smoking 


their pipes. When they saw me coming in my Prince Albert they took their 
pipes out of their mouths and bowed low, saying ‘““Me Lord” as I passed. 


You will say that he is most certainly jesting, making fun of him- 
self. And that may be true, but I am sure also that he had his 
satisfaction, and still has it, in the fact that he was called “My 
Lord.” 

Another determining factor in the behavior of the immigrant is 
American lawlessness. Translations of American dime novels are 


PERSONALITY IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT 45 


popular in Poland, stories of American freedom and banditry are 
carried back by returning immigrants, the grandiosity of the Polish 
aristocracy preadapts the consciousness of the immigrant boy to 
some spectacular exhibition of his freedom, and the copy may be 
banditry. In the first letter written home a certain immigrant said: 
“I am walking on North Clark Street. I have a revolver. Just let 
anybody give me a dirty look.” Four Chicago boys, one of them 
not a Pole, decided on a holdup. They met a farmer in the early 
morning coming in with a load of garden truck. He gave over his 
watch and money. This did not seem satisfactory; they held a con- 
ference and decided to kill him; and so they did. Even this did not 
seem a very distinguished exploit, not harrowing, so they cut off 
a piece of his leg and stuffed it in his mouth. They were very 
young, but they were all hanged on account of the last act of 
atrocity. 

Generally speaking, I should say that the Polish immigrant 
tends to be a dissociated personality, a consciousness divided, like 
all Gaul, into three parts, as result of three dominant experience 
complexes—the community conditioning, the aristocratic condi- 
tioning, and the conditioning by American freedom—in terms of 
the wishes, desire for stability, desire for recognition, and desire 
for new experience. These features are not all, but they are out- 
standing. It is on this account that the behavior of the Pole newly 
come to America is so completely incalculable. You can never 
know, under a given stimulus, which experience complex will come 
to the front and determine the behavior reaction. A policeman may 
enter a public place where there is loud noise and call for quiet. 
The place may become silent as a tomb, or one of the men may 
draw a gun and shoot the officer—on the one hand, the older condi- 
tioning to the authority of the home, the upper classes, and the 
Russian police; on the other hand, the newer conditioning to free- 
dom. Two men exchanged some blows one evening in a boarding- 


46 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


house. One of them went to work in the morning. The other, a 
night worker, slept. About ten o’clock in the morning it occurred 
to the day worker to go back and kill the night worker. He did 
this, putting a pistol to his ear, and returned to work. After some 
days of excitement, during which no suspicion was directed toward 
the murderer, he simply appeared and said: “Why, I killed that 
man.” He felt that he was being cheated of his distinction. The 
police call behavior of this kind “Polish warfare.” During the war 
Paderewski and others were addressing an audience of Poles. The 
previous speakers had been annoyed by the noisy behavior of the 
audience. When Paderewski rose his first words were: “Be quiet, 
cattle!”? There was no more noise. The speaker had used an old 
expression of the Polish nobleman as applied to the peasant. Per- 
haps he took a chance. If the freedom complex had come to the ¥ 
front there might have been trouble. 

I have spoken at this length of an immigrant group not because 
I think the immigrant is the chief problem in the city environment. 
Evidently the chief problem is the young American person. The 
immigrant is never assimilated anyway. He becomes here some- 
thing else, but not an American. If he returns, say, to Poland, he 
has to be re-Polonized, and that never happens either. He becomes 
still something else, but not a Pole. The second-generation immi- 
grant becomes nearly an American, but is still somewhat condi- 
tioned by the adult family habits, while the third-generation repre- 
sentative (if the family has not encountered too much race preju- 
dice) is practically just an American child. So the problem be- 
comes again one of the child. 

The problem of the immigrant and the child is the same in this 
respect: that the American child is as alien to the standards of the 
older generation, generally speaking, as the immigrant is alien to 
America in general, and in this connection the frequently complete 
resistance of the older generation to change (seeking stability) 


PERSONALITY IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT 47 


seems as much out of place as the partial demoralization or incom- 
plete organization of the younger generation (seeking new expe- 
rience). 

The ethnogeographers speak of a moving environment in con- 
nection with those tribes which have to emigrate with the seasons, 
in pursuit of grass and water, and psychologically we are also living 
in a moving environment, so that the question of the formation, 
balance, and interaction of the experience complexes becomes more 
acute, especially in the urban environment. It is investigation along 
this line, as it seems to me, that will lead to a more critical discrimi- 
nation between that type of disorganization in the young which is a 
real but frustrated tendency to organize on a higher plane, or one 
more correspondent with the moving environment, and that type of 
disorganization which is simply the abandonment of standards. It 
is also along this line, and I refer still to the study of the experience 
complexes, that we shall gain light on the relation of fantastic phan- 
tasying to realistic phantasying—a question, as Professor Giddings 
has pointed out, which deserves our attention, and which is one of 
the outstanding points in the wild behavior of the Poles which I 
have outlined above. 

It will prove true, I think, that demoralization is the result of 
the formation of experience complexes which are nevertheless not 
integrated or organized among themselves sufficiently to secure be- 
havior reactions corresponding with reality or with existing social 
values; that for the most part disorganization is a transitional stage 
between two forms of organization, and that the element of phan- 
tasy may contribute either to disorganization or to a higher type of 
organization. 


~WirttaAm I. Tuomas 
New ScHoot or Soctat RESEARCH 


SOCIAL DISTANCE IN THE CITY 


Despite the physical proximity of city people, social distance 
prevails. The lack of fellow-feeling and understanding which char- 
acterizes social distance is everywhere evident in cities. The capi- 
talist and labor-unionist mutually denouncing each other are dis- 
playing social-distance traits. The wealthy landlord and the dwell- 
ers in the former’s congested and perhaps insanitary tenements are 
separated by wide social distances. The hod-carrier and the society 
débutante manifest little understanding of each other. Tipping, a 
city custom, implies social distance, for one rarely tips his peers. 
Tipping signifies difference in status and hence denotes social dis- 
tance. 

The cleavages between city-bred children and their parents, be- 
tween city-influenced children and their rural-trained elders, are 
increasing. The existence of boys’ predatory gangs, of high juve- 
nile-delinquency rates, and of crime waves in cities is an index of 
social distance. Race riots are chiefly urban phenomena revealing 
social distance. Descriptions of the large city as the “lonesomest 
spot anywhere,” or as “the most unsocial place in the world,” are 
expressions of social distance. 


I 


In order to measure and interpret social distance a list of seven 
social relationships has been worked out, and sixty persons of train- 
ing and experience have been asked to rate these in order of the 
fellow-feeling and understanding that ordinarily exists in each. 
These social relationships, arranged according to the judges’ ver- 
dict in order of decreasing fellow-feeling and understanding, may 
be indicated as follows: (1) To admit to close kinship by mar- 


48 


SOCIAL DISTANCE IN THE CITY 49 


_Yiage; (2) to have as “chums”; (3) to have as neighbors on the 


_ Same street; (4) to admit as members of one’s occupation within 


one’s country; (5) to admit as citizens of one’s country; (6) to 
admit as visitors only to one’s country; and (7) to exclude en- 
tirely from one’s country. 

In the next place a list of the important racial and language 
groups living in the United States was submitted to experimental 
groups of native-born Americans living in cities and numbering 
450. These urbanites were asked, on the basis of their first-feeling 
reactions, to put crosses under each of the seven social relation- 
ships to which they would admit members of each race (beginning 
with Armenians and ending with the Welsh), as a class, and not the 
best or the worst of each race they had known. If a person had no 
““first-feeling reactions,” no marks were to be made. 

As a result, for instance, the Armenians and other races such as 
the Negroes, Chinese, Hindus, and Turks were admitted by only a 
few of the 450 persons to the first three social relationships in the 
list of seven, and were put by many into social relationships 4 and 
5, and by a substantial number into social relationships 6 and 7. 
On the other hand, races such as the English, French, N orwegians, 
and Scotch were admitted more or less freely to each of the first 
five social relationships, and were put by scarcely anyone into social 
relationships 6 and 7. 

When we consider these two groupings (which for convenience 
may be called A and B, in the order given) we find that the races in 
group A are doubly handicapped in their social relationships with 
the 450 urban people as compared with the races in group B. They 
are allowed social contacts in a far less number of social relation- 
ships than are the races in group B, and moreover, these limited 
social relationships exist at a considerable social distance. The op- 
portunities for assimilation open to group A are measurably smaller 


50 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


than for group B. Likewise, the chances for the rise of misunder- 
standing, ill-will, and conflict are measurably greater. 

An examination of the racial origins of the 450 city-dwellers 
whose first-feeling reactions have been recorded shows that few 
were of group A descent, while 85 per cent claim group B descent, 
and that in nearly all cases where racial heritage connections are 
prominent, social distances are short, and that the connections 
which exist between heritage and distances are measurable. Where 
racial-heritage connections are missing, the first-feeling reactions 
are usually accompanied by long social distances, but the excep- 
tions to this statement are somewhat numerous and require further 
research. . 7 

Data now being gathered from urban people of races other than 
American show social-distance reactions similar in principle to 
those already noted, but different in details. For example, while 
Americans put the Turks at the greatest social distance, the Chi- 
nese put the English at a greater social distance than any other 
race; and the Jews, the Poles, and so on. Nearly all feel that 
Americans have a racial-superiority complex, and resent 1h 


- t. “Let the Chinese be damned of body and soul” has been the byword of — 
the English toward my innocent people for more than half a century. Al- 
though one of the oldest and most outstanding Christian nations of the world, 
she has poisoned the body and mind of the Chinese through the opium traffic. 
She is continuing this treachery with greater effort. This is unthinkable; that 
a God-fearing, out-and-out Christian nation is peddling a drug of that nature 
in this day and age. I cannot tolerate hypocrisy in any individual; then should 
I tolerate it in a nation as such? Decent society outlaws dope peddlers; there- 
fore decent civilization in like manner should outlaw nations as such. 

2. They [the whites] fear the inevitable progress of the darker races. 
Prejudice is bringing the very things they are fighting. With white skin, one 
can have education and positions and better jobs and more comfortable homes. 
They have more freedom to enjoy life, without being humiliated always. With 
freedom they need just an ambition, and then all gates are open that are other- 
wise closed to us. 


SOCIAL DISTANCE IN THE CITY 51 


3. I do not judge people by race or nationality. I consider the individual 
only, and I like or dislike them for the qualities I find in them. But I guess I 
like the white people least of all. They are always so full of prejudice and 
hatred to other races. They are so unjust and inhuman when it comes to other 
races. And the worst of it is, they spread their prejudices to others. 

4. In high school, prejudice kept me from finishing my last year. If Iam 
hungry, I cannot eat at public places unless owned by one of my own people. 
If I’m thirsty, I cannot drink in any place but one of my own, no matter how 
I conduct myself, or how I look. In fact, my face is treated as if it were a 
race of lepers or rattlesnakes. 

5. We want to be treated as human beings; as citizens with citizens’ 
rights. We expect to be punished when we’re wrong, but we want protection 
when we’re in the right. We want the freedom of public places. For instance, 


the street is public; in the same way, all public places should be open to 
everyone. 


II 
In order to secure a more accurate idea of how the racial-dis- 
tance reactions of native-born city people change, the following ex- 
periment was made (Table I); it opensa large field for exploration. 


TABLE I 


CHANGES IN SOcIAL-DISTANCE REACTIONS BY 110 URBAN AMERICANS 
8—s—=Soa0a0mM9aeEa9S9BSSSSS SS 


Toward Following Races (Samples)| More Favorable Less Favorable No Change 


reians its lee ero ety « 23 9 78 
RPEINCGE cates ccte 19 IO 81 
SROKIIA HS Pe ce noe yea 6 34 70 
PAGE Ye. pte Nels ah 3 II 096 
PE DAMeGe ual eniens sue noe 23 19 68 
DORCAS Topi eod erik yl 15 22 73 
BEORCRY Pease Mri ee cats ° fe) IIo 
OTS rane heat theta oe I 16 93 


The relatively large figures in column 3 indicate that changes 
_ in first-feeling reactions take place slowly—more so than might be 
_ anticipated. Through personal interviews materials are at hand 
which explain these changes. The numerous “no changes” are the 


52 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


result either of no racial contacts and experiences or else of possess- 
ing attitudes so fixed for or against various races that the habitual 
reactions are adamant to all ordinary racial experiences. One is 
likely to have such favorable convictions concerning his own race, 
and such an antipathy toward at least a few other races, that cur- 
rent experiences do not change him. 

The “more favorable” changes, as noted in column 1, are often 
due to personal experiences of a pleasing nature with a few repre- 
sentatives of the given races. If a person has previously had a neu- 
tral attitude, then a few pleasing experiences will suffice; but if he 
has had an unfavorable attitude, then many pleasurable experiences 
will be necessary in order to produce a “more favorable” opinion. 

On the other hand, an unpleasant experience with a single 
Armenian, for example, will quickly change a person’s first-feeling 
reactions from neutral to unfavorable. The figures in column 2 are 
to be accounted for, usually, by one or a few unfortunate experi- 
ences or by a few adverse hearsay experiences. A person’s social- 
distance reactions shift according to the unpleasant or pleasant 
nature of personal experiences. 


III 


An analysis of the occupational activities of the 450 city people 
who co-operated in this experiment shows substantial groups of — 
business men, social workers, and public-school teachers. As a 
whole, the business men record somewhat greater social-distance 
reactions toward nearly all races than do social workers. In turn, 
the social workers likewise record somewhat greater social-distance 
reactions than do public-school teachers. Additional data are nec- 
essary, although recently acquired occupational data have not 
changed earlier findings. Apparently, special social-distance reac- 
tions accompany each occupation according to the particular expe- 
riences which are common to it. The business men are engaged in 


SOCIAL DISTANCE IN THE CITY 53 


“a getting and profit-making” occupation, as distinguished from 
social work and teaching, which are “giving and non-profit-mak- 
ing” occupations. Social experiences on the former basis, less likely 
to be favorable than on the latter, create greater social distances 
than the latter. Social workers are dealing with adults, primarily, 
while teachers are working with children, who are likely to be more 
responsive, a situation which partly accounts for the shorter social- 
distance reactions of teachers than of social workers. 


IV 


The chief significance of social distance is its relation to social 
status. For example, Japanese immigrants are desirous of improv- 
ing their status and, when possible, move out of “Little Tokio” into 
a neighborhood occupied by natives, but in so doing they get “out 
of place.” Hence, they irritate people who want an established 
order. They, however, are more willing to take rebuffs than to 
accept inferior status. Distance usually means inferior status. At- 
tempts to climb up from the lower-status levels brings persecution 
and conflict. The dilemma is the choice between inferior status and 
peace on one hand, or recognized status and conflict on the other. 

“Invasion” is a key to a great deal of the social distance that 
exists between the native-born and immigrants in cities. As long as 
races stay in ghettoes or Little Italy’s, they are “all right,” but 
when their members “invade” the “American” neighborhoods, new 
social-distance reactions are at once generated against them. The 
speed at which this invasion is undertaken bears a direct relation to 
the rise of social-distance feelings. Likewise, the difference between 
the culture forms of the “invaders” and of the natives is an index 

* Our national exclusion law, barring the Japanese altogether, is interpreted by 
Japanese as lowering their status in the eyes of the world. They are put at a greater 
distance than European races, and hence they feel, as we would if in their places, on 


a lower level. This increasing of social distance by legislation is interpreted as a 
demotion in status—something which is intolerable to a proud people. 


54 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


to the probable rise of social-distance attitudes. To the extent that 
the native feels that his status has been lowered by the invasion of 
his neighborhood or his occupation by immigrant people, to that 
extent his social-distance attitudes are inflamed. 

Social distance results from the maintenance of social status, 
that is, of the status quo in social relationships. A person, by keep- 
ing others at a distance, maintains his standing among his friends. 
One can bear the loss of almost anything in life easier than loss of 
social status, hence the raison d’étre for maintaining social dis- 
tances. 

Personal status has usually originated in force, and social dis- 
tance likewise has been established by force, war, misrepresenta- 
tion, and subtle propaganda devices. The status of groups has usu- 
ally been determined in the same manner. Moreover, any group or 
person will ordinarily fight to maintain status, once it has been 
achieved—even when acquired unjustly. They will usually struggle 
to improve status, although perhaps by less direct means. Status 
and social distance are precious partly because they have usually 
been struggled for. When status is once achieved, it is maintained 
until a successful challenger appears. But this is an unstable basis 
for the group, so that we find status and distance ingrained in laws, 
hereditary procedure, a social caste system, and the mores, and 
thus made relatively permanent. 

If a metropolite would “get ahead” he usually must become 
“ageressive,” but aggressiveness on the part of one person or of a 
group is often an invasion of the status of other persons or groups. 
Hence social-distance reactions are kept in turmoil. To the extent 
that a city is composed of aggressive persons, eager to succeed, 
social-distance attitudes will be kept active—despite the fact that 
physical distances have been largely overcome. 


E. S. BoGARDUS 
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 


A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE CITY! 


This paper is an attempt to see the unity of city life, and lays 
no claim to scientific validity. It is frankly metaphysical in nature 
and philosophical in method. It aims at an interpretation of the 
manifoldness of city life in terms of the sociological structure as 
its symbol and cause. It purports to be an illustration of sociologi- 
cal determinism, and it is offered as one of many possible alterna- 
tives to the economic determinism so prevalent in modern thought. 

But an interpretation of city life, if it is an interpretation of 
the life of big cities, becomes more than a mere philosophy of the 
town. It becomes a philosophy of the culture which produces these 
cities. As long as towns are small and insignificant the rural life is 
the creator of cultural values. Under these conditions the town is 
but a market, serving rural ends. With the growth of the city the 
positions change. Not only does the town obtain a life of its own, 
but it begins to dominate the country, until finally the city has 
grown to a metropolis and becomes the cultural sovereign of the 
country, setting the fashion not merely in dress and manner, but in 
all aspects of life. In so far as our Euro-American culture is a city 
culture, in so far will a sociological interpretation of the city be a 
sociological interpretation of the whole of that Euro-American 
culture. 

The brief statement presented here is an abbreviated form of a 
larger study. All specific illustrations and concrete instances have 

*The writer wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Georg Simmel and 
Oswald Spengler. For Oswald Spengler, see Untergang des Abendlandes (Miinchen, 
1922), II, chap. ii, “Stadte und Vélker,” 101-31. For Georg Simmel, see “Die 
Grosstadte und das Geistesleben,” pp. 185-206 in Die Grosstadt: Vortrage und 


Aufsdtze zur Stadteausstellung (Dresden, 1903), a symposium edited by Zahn and 
Jaensch. 


55 


56 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


been omitted, and this paper is, therefore, offered rather as a sketch 
of a sociological philosophy than as an actual interpretation in such 
terms. 


THE SOCIOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 


The first and most obvious distinction between the rural and 
the urban community is that of size. The second, and not less sig- 
nificant, dissimilarity lies in the quantity of social contacts in 
which the average inhabitant of the two communities normally par- 
ticipates. These two characteristics together, the size of the social 
circles and the quantity of social contacts, give city life its peculiar 
quality of complexity and manifoldness. 

The community life of primitive man and of the village inhabi- 
tant is based on a primary group, that is, on face-to-face contact. 
It means intimate relationships, spontaneous accommodations, and 
identification of the self with the group. In the city all this has 
changed. A large part of social life comes to be lived in terms of 
secondary contacts and associations. The community to which the 
city man belongs has become so large that it has ceased to be an 
immediate experience. 

This receding of the community from the actual daily life of 
the individual means a weakening of the immediate and spontane- 
ous social restraints and a new form of social control by means of 
law. But although the law with its public sanctions may bind the 
individual more strongly, it binds much less of him. A large sphere 
of behavior is thus freed from immediate restraint, and in this the 
individual is allowed an opportunity for differentiation and spe- 
cialization. 

ASSOCIATIONS 


But this increased individual differentiation finds again expres- 
sion in a social form. There arise numerous associations on the 


A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE CITY 57 


basis of specialized interests differentiated out of the total commu- 
nity life. The city man substitutes a social life in associations for 
the community life which has lost its social effectiveness. 

The small community touches the individual in all aspects of 
his personality and demands his exclusive loyalty. The association 
touches only certain aspects of his personality, demands only a lim- 
ited participation, and leaves him free to enter into innumerable 
other associations. On an associational basis he can express his in- 
dividual uniqueness in social forms and yet feel free from hamper- 
ing social restraints because the restraints thus incurred are of his 
own choosing. 


ASSOCIATIONAL NATURE OF PRIMARY GROUPS 


Nevertheless, the city dweller is not innocent of primary group 
life. Far from it. He has his family, his club life or his gang, and 
his immediate social circle. But this primary group life differs in 
two important aspects from the similar contacts of his rural 
brother. It is to a large extent a social environment of his own 
choosing, and it requires a more conscious participation. In the vil- 
lage even the social environment of the adult is largely a predeter- 
mined environment. In the city the individual has a great many 
circles from which to choose, but he must win his right to member- 
ship. His acceptance will more often depend on what he does than 
on what he is. 

It is characteristic of the city environment that its primary 
group life, not excepting the family, partakes more of the charac- 
teristics of associational than of community life. This means a pre- 
dominance of rational, purposive living in terms of individual in- 
terests, rather than the unconscious dissolution of the individuality 
in the life of the group, which is characteristic of small communities. 


58 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


NUMBER OF CONTACTS 


It is not merely in the quality of his relationships that the city 
dweller differs from his rural brother, but also in the quantity. Ow- 
ing to his greater mobility his associations are more numerous. On 
the street, in the subway, on the bus, he comes in daily contact with 
hundreds of people. But these brief incidental associations are 
based neither on a sharing of common values nor on a co-operation 
for a common purpose. They are formal in the most complete sense 
of the term in that they are empty of content. The sociological 
aspect of these relationships is, therefore, best defined as one of 
spatial proximity and social distance. They are merely the transi- 
tory meetings of strangers, in which the individual uniqueness of 
the participants remains hidden behind a shield of formal objectiv- 
ity, aloofness, and indifference. 


COMPLEXITY 


The size of the social circles and the plurality and manifoldness 
of contacts are responsible for the characteristic sociological struc- 
ture of the city. The city man’s effective social world is not an in- 
clusive community, but a social world consisting of a great number 
of intersecting social circles, mostly of an associational nature. 
Many of these circles are far apart. The city environment is not 
only an environment where a man can lead a double life in the 
popular sense of the word, but it is the environment in which most 
men lead a plural social life in the technical sense of the word. The 
city is a pluralistic social universe with a plurality of social stand- 
ards and relative values. 

The plurality of social forms in which the city man participates 
tends to heighten a consciousness of these social forms and, in con- 
trast with this social environment, a consciousness of self. The self 
is the only abiding substratum in the changing participations. The 
individual becomes aware both of his social environment and of 


A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE CITY 59 


himself as the meeting-point of convergent social circles in that 
environment. In other words, he becomes self-assertive, in con- 
trast with the village inhabitant who lacks that sharp consciousness 
of difference between individuality and group, and between private 
life and social life. 

From this analysis of the sociological aspect of city life we can 
state certain findings. 

The social behavior pattern of city life is characterized from 
the formal social point of view, that is, from the point of view of 
structure, by a numerical preponderance of large over small cir- 
cles; secondary over primary groupings; associations over com- 
munities; transitory over permanent contacts. The social behavior 
pattern of the city life is characterized from the formal individual 
point of view, that is, from the point of view of behavior process, 
by a numerical preponderance of unrestrained over restrained; in- 
dividualistic over conformative; rational over emotional; formal, 
objective over personal, intimate; self-assertive over self-effacing 
behavior. 

This behavior pattern of the city inhabitant, because socially 
induced and determined, becomes the mold which shapes all human 
actions, values, and ideas, and is, therefore, the outstanding forma- 
tive influence in culture. 

But the qualities previously enumerated are characteristic not 
merely of the sociological structure of the city, but of all aspects of 
city life. For the purpose of illustration this paper will deal only 
with the broad fields of morals, politics, economics, art, and phi- 
losophy. But no aspect of life is exempt from the formative influ- 
ence of the mold. 


MORALS 


That the moral behavior of the city man manifests the charac- 
teristics enumerated is a matter of common knowledge. The city 


60 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


is the seat of crime, and the metropolite is an individualist, a rela- 
tivist, and a formalist in all aspects of moral life. He substitutes 
“good manners” for personal sympathy and “correct behavior” for 
“old-fashioned morality.” He refuses to accept the moral code as 
fixed for all eternity, and reserves the right to design his own norms 
of conduct. He has been accused of egoism, and his hypocrisy has 
been compared unfavorably with the sterling qualities of the honest 
farmer. 

But it is hard to see how it could be otherwise. Moral behavior 
is, after all, merely social behavior viewed with reference to norms 
and standards. The statements that social restraints are weak and 
that crimes are numerous are merely two different descriptions of 
the same phenomenon. That the city man is an egoist is the imme- 
diate result of his social life, which demands self-assertiveness. 
Hypocrisy means that the individual so accused does act differently 
under different circumstances. But the city inhabitant is a dweller 
in a pluralistic social universe. He participates in a great many 
different social circles, and is thus subject to a great many different 
sets of social standards. 

It is therefore obvious that the moral life of the city is not only 
indirectly, but also directly and immediately, determined by the 
sociological structure. It is merely that structure itself, seen as be- 
havior and viewed with reference to moral standards. 


POLITICS 


In the field of politics we observe the same phenomena. To the 
city, the bulwark of liberty in all civilizations, we owe both freedom 
and democracy. It was in the city-states of the ancient world that 
democracy was born, and it was in the towns of the Middle Ages 
that men fought as freemen against the absolutism of monarchs 
when their rural brothers were still enslaved in the meshes of the 
feudal régime. In the history of freedom the city has played the 


: 
} 


A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE CITY 61 


leading réle. It invented the rights of man, and it has fought for 
these rights with oratory, with pamphlets, and with stronger weap- 
ons. Most political revolutions have had their origin in the city, 
and many of them have been decided on the barricades of the capi- 
tol. That was the case in the revolutions of ’48 and again in the 
revolutions of the post-war period. 

The desire for democracy is the desire to reproduce in the po- 
litical organization of the nation the formal sociological relations of 
the city. Democracy means formal equality of all voters, and, 
therefore, the neglect of individual differences. It means freedom 
to combine in political parties on the basis of common interests, and 
it means the substitution of restraint by laws of one’s own making 
for restraint by autocratic decree. 

This modern legislation is itself rational in design and aggres- 
sive in nature. The modern law is not merely a translation into 
legal form of what is already accepted as custom. Its aim is not, as 
in former times, conservation, but its object is increasingly becom- 
ing reform and reconstruction. This belief in the possibilities of 
reconstruction by legislation is itself an expression of the unquali- 
fied faith in reason. 

The sociological structure of the city has been the predominat- 
ing influence in political theory from the eighteenth-century no- 
tions of individual natural rights up to the present pluralistic 
theory of the state, with its overemphasis on associations and its 
neglect of the community. 

ECONOMICS 


The familiar behavior pattern is observable not merely in the 
spheres of morals and politics, but also in the sphere of economic 
life. Freedom is the keynote to the modern economic structure, and 
it is in the city that we find the modern economy developed to its 
full glory. Freedom of contract and freedom of competition are its 
basic principles. 


62 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


This economic freedom has also produced an economic indi- 
vidualism. The division of labor and the differentiation of occupa- 
tions are the immediate product of the absence of enforced con- 
formity. 

In the modern money economy, economic behavior is guided 
by considerations of price, and therefore by mathematical reason- 
ing. A predominant money economy means an eyaluation of goods 
not in and for themselves, in terms of subjective enjoyment, but in 
terms of money, that is, in terms of other goods. 

While individualism is the characteristic feature in the field of 
production, formalism is the characteristic feature in the field of 
consumption. Standardized consumption means the ignoring of in- 
dividual tastes in consumers on the part of producers. 

That self-assertion is a predominant note in modern economic 
life need hardly be mentioned. Ruthless competition is one of its 
outstanding characteristics, and the modern business man is as 
aggressive in his sales policies toward a defenseless public as he is 
in his struggles with his competitors. 


ART 

The characteristic behavior pattern has pressed its mold not 
merely on immediately social aspects of life, but also on art and 
philosophy, which are social only in a very indirect sense. 

Modern art since the Renaissance presents a number of aspects 
which seem the immediate reflex of the typical sociological struc- 
ture of the city. It shows differentiation in the independence and 
self-sufficiency of the different art forms. Sculpture and painting 
have now become completely divorced from architecture and music, 
and dancing from poetry. There is a strong manifestation of indi- 
vidualism in the absence of a common style and the plurality of 
schools and movements. A growing intellectualism and a tendency 
toward abstract treatment is evident in music as well as in sculpture 
and painting. 


~ 


A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE CITY 63 


The revolt against restraints is manifest in all arts, both in 
form and content. In the latter it is especially noticeable in modern 
literature. The old forms are no longer acceptable, and generally 
acceptable new ones have not yet been found. The unities of the 
drama, the rules of composition in music and literature and paint- 
ing have all been relegated to the attic. Music without theme, nov- 
els without plots, verse without rhyme, and language without gram- 
mar—such is modern art. 

Such formal restraints have been rejected because they hamper 
self-expression, and self-expression is the aim of every artist. All 
that the modern artist can express is himself, not merely in his 
treatment, but also in his subject matter. He can no longer give 
artistic expression to common values because there are no common 
values to express. Hence the impressionism and post-impressionism 
in music, sculpture, and painting, and the psychoanalytic move- 
ment in literature. Hence also the formalism, with its cry of art for 
art’s sake, and the pure aestheticism, which sees the highest art in 
beautiful but meaningless forms. 


PHILOSOPHY 


The philosophy of our modern civilization shows once more, 
like that of other periods and other cultures, that even the most 
abstract speculations are merely the rationalizations of life’s expe- 
rience. It is characterized by a relativation of form on the one hand 
and an emphasis on process on the other. The latter is illustrated 
by the philosophy of Nietzsche and Bergson, in their emphasis on 
life and on the vital principle. The former is evident in historicism, 
psychologism, pragmatism, or whatever else modern relativism 
may be called. 

The philosophers of vitalism have emphasized the unity and 
permanence of life’s process over the plurality of life’s forms; the 
philosophers of relativism have emphasized the plurality of life’s 


64 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


forms over the unity of life’s process—both have started from the 
modern social structure. The first have built on the heightened 
consciousness of the unity and the permanence of the self in a world 
of manifold social circles. The latter have started from a height- 
ened consciousness of the plurality and manifoldness of the social 
environment. Both have admitted the relativity of form. 

Thus moral values and aesthetic values have lost their absolu- 
tism, and even truth itself has become relative. It is no longer 
absolute and universal, self-evident and eternal, but it has become 
a relativity, a means to an end, an “as if,” a mere tool in a process 
of adaptation. This pluralistic universe of modern philosophy is 
but the metaphysical projection of the pluralistic social world of 
the modern city. 

SUMMARY 


These illustrations must suffice to indicate the trend of a soci- 
ological interpretation of life. Wherever we have searched in the 
various aspects of modern life there we have found the familiar 
characteristics. Whether we observed the field of politics or of art, 
of economics or of metaphysics, individualism and self-assertion, 
rationalism and relativism were always in evidence. The social be- 
havior pattern is truly a mold which shapes all life. 

The sketch of our social philosophy is, therefore, completed. 
Viewed as a precursor to a scientific study of social phenomena, it 
can give only a few tentative suggestions for studies of social causa- 
tion. Viewed as a social metaphysics it is independent and self- 
sufficient, to be judged only in terms of its adequacy to give a uni- 
tary interpretation of the manifoldness of city life. 


NICHOLAS J. SPYKMAN 
YALE UNIVERSITY 


II 
SOCIAL BIOLOGY OF CITY LIFE 


SOCIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY 


With regard to the relation of sociology and biological science 
in the common task of understanding human phenomena two ex- 
treme positions have been more or less naively occupied. Some 
writers have held that social reality is merely a recurrent expres- 
sion of the biological characteristics of the human animal and so 
without independent continuity. Others have conceived of cultural 
phenomena as independent of the hereditary physical facts and un- 
influenced by differences or changes in the biological stock. The 


_ effort of various writers to resolve the conflict into an intermediate 


position has frequently resulted in their alternate occupation of 
mutually exclusive points of view. Nowhere, apparently, have the 
independence and the interdependence of the biological and socio- 
logical processes been adequately defined and clarified. 

In certain respects at least the distinction between the proc- 
esses is clear-cut and, in spite of the historic confusion, unmistak- 
able. The mechanism of the process which is the object of biolog- 
ical study is germinal transmission which insures species continu- 
ity, and selection by environmetal factors of variant types resulting 
in a modification of the germinal constitution and, in subsequent 
generations, in modified organic forms. The general rejection of 
the hypothesis of use-inheritance puts the individual life-experi- 


ence outside the orbit of biological interest except in so far as it 
_ operates selectively to change the germinal stream. The process is 


always selective, never cumulative. The mechanism of the process 
which is the object of sociological study is interaction, through con- 
tact and communication, which insures the cultural continuity of 


_ the group, and the accumulation, through invention and diffusion, 


67 


68 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


of culture facts resulting in a modification of the forms of interac- 
tion and, ultimately, in the social nature of the communicating 
forms. The process is always cumulative. The two processes are 
relatively, not absolutely, independent and are not measureable 
one in terms of the other. 

Changes in the biological nature of the organism may give rise 
to phenomena that are in no sense biological. The amalgamation 
of divergent ethnic groups is a biological phenomenon, and the 
inherited characteristics of the offspring of such unions a subject 
for biological investigation. But the condition under which two 
such divergent groups will amalgamate is a question in which the 
biologist is not interested and to the investigation of which his tech- 
nique is not adapted. The characteristic appearance of the hybrid 
offspring, a biological fact, may be the occasion of differential treat- 
ment determining social status, personal success, and psychological 
characteristics, the investigation of which is exclusively sociolog- 
ical. A similar thing is true in regard to the new or modified racial 
attitudes that may result directly from the amalgamation or indi- 
rectly from the socially determined characteristics of the hybrids. 

On the other hand the social process may give rise to phenom- 
ena that fall outside the sociological orbit and within the biological. 
To continue the illustration above, the social status of the hybrid 
individuals may determine marital choices resulting in change in 
the racial stock. 

The individual papers in this section emphasize different as- — 
pects of the social and selective influences of an urban environment 
and exemplify the relative merits of contrasted methods of research. 
Mr. Sutherland’s paper defining the biological and sociological 
processes states the problem and serves as an introduction to those 
that follow. The paper by Mr. Johnson admirably exemplifies the 
type of generalization possible when social reality is approached © 


SOCIOLOGY AND BIOLOGY 69 


from the standpoint of another body of scientific reality. Of the 
three research papers, that of Mr. Herskovits presents statistically 
the effects of social selection in determining a racial type; that of 
Mr. Zorbaugh defines a social type determined by environmental 
conditions; while that of Mr. Wirth shows the formation of social 
types through the interacting réle of temperament and the social 
situation. 


E. B. REUTER 


STATE UNIVERSITY OF IowA 


THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PROCESSES 
I 


Some biologists contend that since biology is the general sci- 
ence of life and sociology is the science of a particular kind of life, 
sociology is merely a part of biology. At the other extreme are 
some sociologists who maintain that sociology and biology are en- 
tirely distinct. Most sociologists take middle ground, but they nev- 
ertheless appropriate a considerable mass of biological materials 
for presentation in their books and lectures, and justify this pro- 
cedure either by the similarity of the biological and sociological 
processes or by the importance of the biological processes as causes 
of the sociological processes. What is the relation between biolog- 
ical processes and sociological processes? This paper is an attempt 
to differentiate them in behavioristic terms. 

Gumplowicz has defined a process as the interaction on each 
other of heterogeneous elements. Interaction, which is the recipro- 
cal action of objects upon each other, is a universal phenomenon 
and is characteristic of everything we know. It is not merely an ac- 
tion of one object and an action of another object, but it involves 
a relation between the actions which justifies the prefix “inter.” 
But Gumplowicz would have been more nearly correct in his defi- 
nition if he had stated that the elements in interaction must be 
homogeneous. Two billiard balls can interact. A billiard ball and a 
human skull can interact. But a billiard ball and a throb of pain 
cannot interact, and a billiard ball and an idea cannot interact. In- 
teraction can occur only between objects on the same plane. They 
must be homogeneous but need not be identical. 


7O 


THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PROCESSES 71 
II 


Professor Herrick has divided biological processes, from the 
point of view of functions performed, into three types: somatic, or 
the adjustment to the external environment; visceral, or the inter- 
nal processes, such as respiration, circulation, or nutrition; and ge- 
netic, or fertilization, growth, inheritance, and similar processes. 
These three types of biological processes, when contrasted with 
inanimate nature, have common characteristics. From the behav- 
ioristic point of view two characteristics of biological processes ap- 
pear: first, regulation, or the dominance of one part of the object 
over other parts of the object so that the parts are, or become, mu- 
tually adjusted to each other and a unified and organized action of 
the whole object is made possible; second, discrimination, or reac- 
tion with reference to external objects in such a way as to perpetu- 
ate the characteristic pattern of the organism. 

Biological processes thus include the interaction of units (indi- 
viduals, cells, organisms), their adjustment to each other, and their 
co-operation with each other. An infection starts in the finger. The 
white blood corpuscles are stimulated to activity; some of them 
make an immediate and direct attack on the invading germs; oth- 
ers reproduce themselves so rapidly that within twenty-four hours 
the number of such cells in the body may be increased by five or six 
hundred per cent. Other parts of the body furnish the materials 
for this. Still other parts dominate the process. Thus there is or- 
ganization and integration. Similar processes may be observed in 
plants. Such processes are, in fact, characteristic of life of every 
kind. 

In such biological processes physico-chemical reactions are go- 
ing on. The thing that is added to the physico-chemical processes 
to produce a biological process does not seem to be a material or 
immaterial element, but a new quality and direction of organiza- 


72 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


tion. Many biologists believe that it will never be possible to ex- 
plain biological processes satisfactorily in terms of physics and 
chemistry, but that the explanation must be made in terms of the 
organization of elements. Professor Haldane has tried to demon- 
strate this in regard to respiration. Thus the existence of a separate 
series of biological processes and of a separate science of biology is 
justified. 

In the social processes, similarly, units (individuals, persons) 
are interacting, are adjusting to each other, and are co-operating 
with each other. It is not the fact of interaction, adjustment, or co- 
operation that makes these processes social, for, as stated previous- 
ly, interaction, adjustment, and co-operation are the traits of all 
biological processes. The thing that makes social processes differ- 
ent from biological processes is the direction and quality of organ- 
ization. A social act must be a joint act in which other individuals 
participate in some way, and the act of each individual must ap- 
pear in the act of the other participants. One must have within his 
organism the same tendencies to act that the other participants 
have, and must organize his act by reference to the prospective acts 
of these others. In this way one takes the part of, puts himself in 
the place of, or plays the réle of, these others. 

Thus the essential characteristic of social interaction is that the 
act of each person has meaning to the other person. Meaning is an 
objective thing, inhering in the behavior of the participants and in 
the objects with reference to which they act. When a thing has 
meaning it is asymbol. As a present stimulus it arouses to action 
with reference to absent objects. It involves an imputation of con- 
sequences to this present object, and thus the absent object comes 
to be effective in organizing present behavior. For interactions 
with such meanings involved in them language seems to be essen- 
tial. And by means of language culture is developed. Thus mean- 


THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PROCESSES 18 


ing, language, and culture seem to be nearly coterminous in their 
development. 

When we speak of insect societies and of the social behavior of 
insects we usually refer merely to their co-operative and adjustive 
behavior. It is interaction, but there is no sufficient reason to call 
it social interaction. Similarly, many interactions of human beings 
are not social interactions. Two persons may bump into each other 
on an icy sidewalk on a windy day. One person may catch a disease 
from another. Such interactions may be, and may remain, entirely 
on a physical or biological plane. The infant “controls” the parent 
by its cry, but so far as the infant is concerned this is not social in- 
teraction until the symbol represents the ability of the child to 
place itself in the position of the parent. 

Just as every biological process is mediated by physical and 
chemical changes, so every social process is mediated by biological 
changes. Some elements in behavior are primarily or exclusively 
biological, while other elements have the additional quality and di- 
rection of organization which makes them social. The process of 
digestion, for instance, is biological, but the selection of a menu, 
the observance of a code of table manners, and the conversation 
with table companions are social. This connection between the bio- 
logical and the social does not make it necessary for the social sci- 
ences to have their feet in both worlds. 

The discussion thus far has been a comparison of biological 
processes and social processes. But all of the social sciences claim 
social processes as their object-matter. The question may be asked, 
What kinds of social processes or what aspects of social processes 
are the particular object-matter of sociology? One answer, recently 
given by Professor Znaniecki,’ to this question is that the particu- 
lar direction of the social activity determines whether the activity 


*F. Znaniecki, Introduction to Sociology, pp. 240 ff. 


74 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


is the object-matter of sociology or of one of the other social sci- 
ences. If the activity is directed at a commodity it is an economic 
activity. If it is directed at a human being or a group of human be- 
ings it becomes the object-matter of sociology. Those social activi- 
ties or social processes which thus involve human beings as values 
may be called sociological activities or processes. 

Efforts have been made by many sociologists to classify social 
interactions. A useful classification, made from the point of view of 
the relation between gesture and response, designed to show the 
patterns of social interactions, is as follows: (a) conflict, illus- 
trated by blow-for-blow, with the reaction directed against, and in 
opposition to, the one who makes the gesture; (>) avoidance, illus- 
trated by pursuit-flight, with a reaction which tends to avert the 
gesture by terminating the contact; (c) submission, illustrated by 
blow-prostration, with a reaction which tends to avert the gesture 
by the assumption of a posture which grants dominance to the one 
making the gesture; and (d) supplementation, with a reaction for 
or with the one who makes the gesture. 


III 


Conventional sociology has followed Herbert Spencer in at- 
tempting to explain social processes by relating them to the entire 
universe outside of those processes. For this purpose the universe 
is generally divided into four factors. Sociologists have taken great 
pride in this fourfold, synthetic explanation, in opposition to geo- 
graphic determinism, economic determinism, biological determin- 
ism, or other particularisms. But within the last generation many 


sociologists have concluded that the proper method of explaining © 


a process is by describing what is going on in that process rather 
than by trying to relate something in the process to something out- 
side of the process. This conclusion is tending to modify the syn- 
thetic method. 

The principal reason for this conclusion and for the abandon- 


THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PROCESSES fis 


ment of Spencer’s synthetic method has been the fact that sociolo- 
gists have found that some social conditions which they had at first 
explained in terms of biological factors could be explained much 
more satisfactorily in terms of social contacts and social interac- 
tions. Thus, at one time crime was explained as due to biological 
equipment. Now it is rather generally agreed by sociologists that 
we have practically no explanation of crime in terms of biology. 
Differences in the behavior and culture of races were once ex- 
plained as due to differences in the biological processes of those 
races. Now there is doubt regarding the extent of these differences, 
and there is a general hypothesis that the differences can best be 
explained in terms of social contacts and social interactions. Dif- 
ferences in the behavior of the sexes, which were believed to be due 
to a difference in biological processes, have been more satisfactorily 
explained by differences in their interactions. As the emphasis in 
one problem after another has thus shifted, there has been a ten- 
dency to draw the inference that the general dependence of social 
processes upon biological processes might not be so certain as was 
at first assumed. The members of the conventional school, how- 
ever, retort, “We do not assert that biological factors absolutely 
determine social processes. In fact, we do not believe that any one 
factor is finally deterministic. We assert merely that biological fac- 
tors are conditions that must be taken into account when we ex- 
plain social processes.” Without pursuing the debate it may be ad- 
mitted that the historical tendency to discard biological factors as 
an explanation does not prove that biological factors are never of 
importance. The historical tendency has merely raised the question 
and pointed the inference. 

Another argument for the separation of sociology and biology 
has been made by the social anthropologists, notably Kroeber.’ 

*A. L. Kroeber, “The Superorganic,” American Anthropologist, XIX (April- 


June, 1917), 163-213; A. L. Kroeber, “The Possibility of a Social Psychology,” 
American Journal of Sociology, XXIII (March, 1918), 633-50. 


76 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


The facts of nature are said to exist on four planes: inorganic, or- 
ganic, psychic, and superorganic. The phenomena of any of these 
planes except the first may be explained either by relating them to 
phenomena on the same plane or by reducing them to terms of the 
lower planes. Either method is mechanistic, for a mechanistic 
method is one which describes the sequential order of occurrences. 
Either method is valid. But the methods are so different that noth- 
ing except confusion results from the attempts to combine them. 
Also, some things can be explained in terms of the same plane 
though they cannot be reduced to terms of a lower plane. The biol- 
ogist may explain the facts of hunger and of eating, but, as a biolo- 
gist, cannot explain why one group regards eggs and milk with ab- 
horrence and another group regards them as necessities of life. 
The most significant reason for the separation of sociology 
from biology is that this makes possible a limitation of the task of 
the sociologist so that his task can be performed scientifically. No 
science can deal with the entire universe. Nor can any science ex- 
plain all the concatenations of particular events. For instance, a 
man is killed by a rifle bullet. In order to explain this particular 
event completely it is necessary to understand the chemistry in- 
volved in the explosion of the gunpowder, the physics involved in 
the force and direction of the bullet, the physiology involved in the 
penetrability of human flesh and in the dying, the sociology in- 
volved in the cultural relations between the persons. Sciences have 
been developed because certain elements were abstracted from 
such concrete events and studied as abstractions. The scientist 
must neglect many elements which are extraneous to the abstracted 
interactions in which he is interested. An economist may admit 
that a person can make better bargains when he is not fatigued 
than when he is fatigued, but he dismisses this as of no significance 
for a general theory of the distribution of wealth. If general laws 


THE BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL PROCESSES 17 


can be developed by a science, they can be used as standards from 
which to measure variations in particular cases. Thus scientific 
theory will be of assistance in understanding the concrete event. 
Professor Znaniecki has recently developed such a sociological 
methodology in his Laws of Social Psychology. He has limited his 
task by neglecting the extraneous origins of social actions, by sep- 
arating social actions from particular individuals, by studying the 
elements of social actions as they appear in various situations. 
Sociological theory, therefore, needs to take biological proc- 
esses into account only in the following provisional ways: First, 
human organisms are the actors and the carriers of culture. Second, 
these human organisms have fundamental capacities and urges dif- 
ferent from the capacities and urges of other organisms, such as 
oysters or sunflowers. Third, these capacities and urges differ 
somewhat from individual to individual; these individual varia- 
tions may be neglected in the construction of general laws, but 
must be taken into account when the general laws are applied in 
concrete situations. Fourth, certain biological conditions are orig- 
inal factors in producing social situations. Thus blindness, deaf- 
ness, or sickness may be a factor in producing social isolation. The 
sociologist does not deny the connection in such cases, but he is in- 
terested in the relation between social isolation and other sociolog- 
ical phenomena, regardless of whether the isolation is connected 
with biological factors, geographic factors, or other factors. Fifth, 
some of the biological traits or processes become objects of cultural 
attitudes and have significance as culture, rather than as biological 
factors. The position and behavior of the mulatto can be explained 
only by the fact that the color of the skin has come to have a social 
value and to be a cultural trait. When the color of the skin is thus 
given a cultural significance it comes to be homogeneous with other 
cultural phenomena and to be a sociological element rather than a 


78 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


biological factor for purposes of sociological theory. The behavior 
of groups with reference to age, sex, and some other traits cah be 
explained in part also in this way. Possibly it may be necessary to 
take biological factors into account in other ways in such a closed 
system. But up to the present time it has not been clearly demon- 
strated that other biological relationships are important for theo- 
retical sociology. 


E. H. SUTHERLAND 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 


THE EUGENICS OF THE CITY 


The first question that arises in a consideration of the eugen- 
ics of a city is: Is the human stock of the city the same, innately, 
as that of the country? We may seek to answer this question in two 
ways: either by a comparison of the inhabitants as we have them 
today, or by making an analysis of the selective agencies that oper- 
ate in differentiating the city dweller and country dweller. The in- 
dividual psychologist has used this first method, as may be seen 
in a series of articles in School and Society and elsewhere, with a 
uniform finding of an average superiority of city folk. More re- 
search is desirable to make sure that adequate allowance has been 
made, in the construction of the tests and in the interpretation of 
the test results, of the effects of environment. Yet the end result, 
while it may reduce the apparent difference between city and coun- 
try stock, will probably substantiate the finding in view of the dif- 
ference. Tests, involving a large vocabulary, now so numerous, are 
contra-indicated because the city man lives in a world of a larger 
vocabulary. 

A second approach is to get the relative percentage of great 
men produced in the city and the country relative to the city and 
country population. The results of such studies confirm the above 
finding. Here again there are interfering variables but the differ- 
ences are such that it is difficult to believe that there is not a real 
difference in stock after a consideration of all the data. As time 
goes on this difference is likely to be greater, because of the in- 
creased role of assortative mating. 

In analyzing the make-up of the city and country population 
we may note first the geographical distribution of immigration. In 
general more immigrants go to the city. One of the main reasons is 


79 


80 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


that the city is growing faster than the country, and its greater op- 
portunities for growth attract the newcomer to a larger extent. The 
city population will then be determined disproportionately by the 
nature of the late migration. The city may also attract dispropor- 
tionately some part of the immigrant stream. This is notably true 
of the Jewish race—one which has evolved very largely in the city 
environment for many centuries past. As such it is a useful type to 
the city, since it can stand city life with less swamping of its supe- 
riors by an inadequate birth-rate, a result which we shall find is the 
usual effect of the city on most of the races. This is a trait of the 
utmost importance. 

One other race seeks the American city especially because the 
traditional occupation at home was agriculture in a warm climate 
with crops different from those that grow here. I refer to the South- 
ern Italian who comes from the culture of the olive, lemon, mul- 
berry, and the wine grape. 

On the other hand, the Scandinavian has sought our northern 
farm lands, where he can apply his farming technique almost un- 
altered. 

The Japanese, with the habits of industry inculcated by a dense 
population, tolerate the long and monotonous hours of the fruit and 
truck farm, where they can work in their own natural way. They 
have thus contributed disproportionately to the country. 

But quite aside from the newcomer from without the national 
boundary, city and country are undergoing a constant interchange 
of city-turned countrymen and country-turned city men, with the 
first in a large majority. This interchange is not haphazard, in the 
long run, but a somewhat selective one. The outstanding types of 
this sort are the gypsy, cowboy, prospector, and sailor. Of these 
only the gypsy is a reproducing unit. The gypsy group, as we see 
it now, has been a result of long selection, the less nomadic becom- 


THE EUGENICS OF THE CITY 81 


ing discontented and settling down, and new nomads joining the 
group. 

The contrast between the introvert who prefers the undisturb- 
ing life of the country and the extrovert who is oppressed by what 
seems to him to be its colorlessness is probably the largest differ- 
entiating factor. Another factor is the relatively stabilized life of 
agriculture, where there is a well-known standard procedure read- 
ily learned by imitation. This is comforting to some limited minds 
who are uncomfortable when confronted with the new on all sides. 
The life of the agricultural laborer or hireling fits a still more in- 
ferior type, where there is little real responsibility, where the 
chores are definitely known and of a routine nature, and where his 
life is sheltered and aid is available to him in meeting his problems. 
In fact, some of the protective features of serfdom and slavery are 
available here, just as in the case of the domestic servant. These 
conditions draw to the country on the whole an intellectually in- 
ferior type, as shown in the comparative mental-test results re- 
ferred to earlier. Of course, there is a contrasted current of retired 
business men, engineers, and the like, who choose to retire to the 
peace of the country after an overtaxing life; but this contribution 
has little significance, since they usually retire after the child- 
bearing period of their wives, and their children have already built 
up the city habit and do not become actual country folk. 

On the other hand, observe the agencies which pull from the 
country its brighter intellects. They go to the universities and 
there usually taste the more exciting life of the city and become 
adjusted to the stimuli of a selected circle. Many of the brighter 
ones are offered positions as university teachers, or become investi- 
gators, or engage in enterprises for marketing or propaganda which 
give them an office or laboratory in the city. An analysis of the 
destiny of agricultural students from the country is needed, but 
will probably show that those who return to the farm and stay 


82 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


there are, on the whole, less intellectual, since the positions re- 
ferred to are offered to select students. Other young men go to the 
city without the intermediary college stage, drawn by the cities’ 
lure. It is probable that these average above those left behind, for 
a similar reason. 

Just as the gypsy represents a strain selected in some degree 
for nomadism, and the Kentucky highlander for isolated small- 
scale farming, so do the Jewish people represent a race selected by 
the city life. Originally the Jews were doubtless primarily a coun- 
try folk. Their various captivities broke their relationship to the 
soil by starting a large city-adapted class, for the slave in Babylon 
was probably used largely in the cities on monumental and other 
constructive work. After the return to Palestine what was more 
natural than that, being less adapted on the whole to country life 
and having too few farms on which to locate, they should become 
traders and, as such, eventually emigrants. It was trade, crafts, 
and emigration, then, that selected the forbears of the European 
and American Jew, so that they are a selection of those more 
adapted to city life. The Jewish race is then primarily a city-pro- 
duced race, and may this not be the reason why it is more econom- 
ically aggressive and more intellectual? Are not these the charac- 
teristics of a people adapted to the city life by conditions prior to 
1877, when the situation became altered by the rapid increase of 
birth control? 

But the city in general, as we shall see later, is destructive to 
the fecundity of the family. Why did it not exterminate this race 
of city folk? It was because the Jews had a family mores developed 
by selection and adaptation to the city which, unlike the mores of 
the Christian peoples they competed with, maintained fecundity, 
and still does, to a greater degree, even in the city environment. 
There is among the Jews little disdain of sex, and there is relatively 
less of the individualism that shirks the burden of children. A 


THE EUGENICS OF THE CITY 83 


tradition that godly conduct involves a marriage not too late for 
an ample family is made a religious matter for rabbi and layman 
alike. This saves the race from the city’s destructiveness. Will the 
Jew, in reforming his religion, hold fast to this valuable feature? 

Now we pass to a different aspect of our subject: To what ex- 
tent do the specific selective agencies within the city act on its com- 
ponent classes in comparison with the action in the country on its 
component classes, and as between the city folk as a whole in com- 
petition with the country folk as a whole? This will be treated un- 
der three heads. 

a) Lethal selection: that is, the effect of a differential death- 
rate—The differences between city and country do not seem to 
me to be as important in reference to this type of selection as the 
other types of selective factors. What contrast there is lies in the 
fact that in the country the death-rate is less variable, class to class, 
than in the city, where the higher social classes have available the 
highest skill and care, which more than compensates for the greater 
exposure to a large variety of pathogenic organisms. In the lower 
economic classes in the city this exposure is increased much more 
than is compensated for by the city’s better facilities. Free clinics 
and the like reduce this difference, but the more ignorant fail to 
make use of what is available and, in fact, often actually prefer the 
dangers of the incompetent “healer.” In brief, the city, on the 
average, increases the average length of life of superiors and de- 
creases that of inferiors—if one can conclude that the superior 
classes, socially, educationally, and economically,show a significant 
degree of positive correlation with innate superiority, an assump- 
tion which will be made throughout this paper. The evidence for 
this view has been made elsewhere by the author. 

b) Marriage-rate and age of marriage-—The difference here 
is very much greater than in the death-rates, for the country fam- 

* Social Hygiene, VII (1921), 255-64. 


84 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


ily usually has many children, regardless of class. In the city, on 
the contrary, only the proletariat, in general, reproduces itself ade- 
quately. In the city the stock with the higher social-economic 
status does not, in general, reproduce itself, so low is the marriage- 
rate and birth-rate. 

The reasons for the higher marriage-rate and earlier marriage 
of country folk lies, it seems to me, first, in a shorter educational 
period; second, in a simpler standard of life; and third, in the very 
great desirability of a housewife in each farm unit. The working 
hours for much of the season are very long, the house is near the 
fields, and there is much minor labor incident to the farm. In addi- 
tion to the obvious economic advantage, there is the greater need 
for companionship during the long evenings at home and during 
the long, relatively dull, winters. And lastly, there is less competi- 
tion from such rival interests as the theater, movies, sport contests, 
lectures, and social gatherings, to which the city dweller gives 
much time. Moreover, in the city the furnished room, the ready 
prepared meal, and the steam laundry lessen the physical disad- 
vantages of celibate life. 

Whereas in the country a high marriage-rate and early mar- 
riage are general for all classes, in the city there is a marked dif- 
ference between classes, and the difference is unfortunately a 
dysgenic one. The causes for the later and fewer marriages of the 
higher social and economic classes of the city are, first, the pro- 
longed educational period, and second, the higher standard of liv- 
ing, which causes the young man at work to postpone his marriage 
till a higher salary is attained. This is partly due to the inevitable 
higher costs of the city, but equally a higher, but not necessarily 
better, idea of what is socially reputable and desired. A third con- 
sideration, operative more with the women, is a higher fastidious- 
ness as to an acceptable mate. Are any of these factors likely at 
all to be altered? I believe a propaganda for a simpler life is likely 


THE EUGENICS OF THE CITY 85 


to be an aspect of religion in its present trend toward the increase 
of the humanistic at the expense of the older, more theistic ele- 
ments in all cults. I have in mind as an evidence Carver’s Religion 
W orth Having, that makes much of the ideal of earlier and better 
marriage with simpler standards on the part of the socially su- 
perior classes. There is also hope in a marriage law that would 
make the minimum age for a marriage certificate vary with the 
education of the applicant; I suggest it should be twenty-one for 
both sexes, except for high-school graduates. 

On the other hand, there are some factors operating to post- 
pone the age of marriage of superiors still further. These are the 
increasing number of women entering professions or crafts having 
a higher intrinsic interest than the low-grade jobs which women a 
generation ago were eager to leave at the first feasible opportunity. 
Then there is an ever increasing number of superiors who are go- 
ing to college, which greatly increased at the end of the war. The 
response of the professional school to the need of limiting its num- 
bers has been the demand for more and more prerequisite years of 
training. A much better plan, eugenically, the universities might 
have discovered, by selecting their students for quality by means of 
their school marks, mental tests, and special aptitude tests. In this 
connection the tendency to give the Rhodes Scholarship to college 
graduates instead of to underclassmen, as in the original plan, is 
to be deplored. 

The divorce-rates in city and country are significantly differ- 
ent. Theoretically, divorce leads, in spite of a few conspicuous 
examples to the contrary, to a substitution of a superior for an in- 
ferior mate. A collection of data on this point is greatly needed, for 
if the facts were known it is probable that many states and some 
churches would be led to a more eugenic attitude toward divorce. 
The more frequent divorces of the city arise mainly from the fact 
that there is commonly less economic interdependence of man and 


86 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


wife in the city than in the country. Secondarily, the social ramifi- 
cations are less in the city, so that one is not known to all the neigh- 
bors and divorce is counted less of a disgrace and more a matter of 
one’s own affair. Thirdly, the wider contrasts of the city lead one 
to a more critical attitude toward the mate. Fourthly, there are 
fewer, if any, children to keep the family together. 

In passing to the third main factor, that of differential fecun- 
dity, we come to the greatest and most significant difference be- 
tween the eugenics of the city and the country. The country fam- 
ily is notoriously larger than the city family, and the difference is 
greatest with the superior classes. The data that is most illuminat- 
ing on this point is that of the alumni of the agricultural colleges in 
comparison with that of the colleges patronized by city folk. 
Whereas the city-folk colleges have alumni who are, in all cases 
known to me, inadequate to reproduce themselves, in agricultural 
colleges we have the highest rates, notably Kansas Agricultural 
College, at Manhattan, Kansas. In an investigation of mine, as 
yet unpublished, of families of Mormon college students in Utah, 
I found that such Mormon families in Salt Lake City were of 
smaller size than the Mormon family in the country. Both city and 
country families in that study were the largest I have yet found in 
educated classes in any western religious cult. This applies to chil- 
dren of one mother. There are no new polygamous marriages per- 
formed there by the Mormon church. 

Some of this difference between city and country follows from 
the fact that in general the country folk are of a lower social-eco- 
nomic level; but this is only a minor factor. The principal factors 
are Closely related to those we dealt with in comparing marriage in 
city and country. In the country marriage is earlier. Children cost 
less to bear and rear in the country, and, conversely, can contribute 
economically in an important degree from the time they can weed, 
pick fruit, and bring the cows home. Children are less of a discom- 


THE EUGENICS OF THE CITY 87 


modity to care for in the country. They play outdoors in approved 
ways more and there is less concern about their clothes. The more 
lonely life of the farm makes them a greater desideratum from the 
standpoint of companionship and parental feeling. The birth-con- 
trol methods of the country districts are mainly old primitive ones 
that are not efficacious, since the restrictions placed by the law 
more effectually keep from the country folk the information and 
the materials employed for this purpose. 

To what extent is there any hope for at least an equalization of 
the country and city in these respects? 

1. The disparity in reference to age of marriage we can expect 
will lessen; first beause the prolongation of schooling in the coun- 
try is likely to be greater in amount per pupil than in the city, since 
the school facilities of the country are growing faster in proportion 
than those of the city; second, the availability of the school is 
greatly increased by the better roads and more automobiles and 
because of a changed attitude toward agriculture which is increas- 
ingly causing the farmer to regard school preparation as valuable. 

2. A lessened isolation of the country because of an easier and 
more frequent transportation increases the travel to and from the 
city. Encouraged by the better transportation, more and more of 
the city folk are taking places in the country, at least for part of 
the year. Better communication, including the rural delivery and 
the radio, is bringing the city and country mores closer in respect to 
some of the differentiating factors, such as the cost of rearing chil- 
dren and the lonely life of the farm. 

3. On the side of the city, the growing tendency for the city 
worker to live out of town far enough to get some of the country 
cultural aspects mentioned and to commute or motor in prevents, 
in part, the city environment from reducing the size of his family 
as much as it would if he had lived in town. Yet such individuals 
cannot be expected to have as large families as the real country 


88 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


population has, for many of the city factors that make for a lim- 
ited family are still operating on such families. 

4. It is, however, with respect to birth control that the future 
offers the greatest possibility of change. While the distribution of 
information and materials is still illegal, people as a whole have a 
strong disapproval of the law, at least in so far as it applies to them- 
selves, so that the information as to the newer, more efficacious, 
and less discommodious methods of birth control are spreading 
rapidly among the well-informed of the city and also more slowly 
through the country. Public opinion has now reached the point 
where modification of these laws is imminent. If they are not modi- 
fied, they will fall into disuse, as prosecution and conviction, be- 
cause of the attitude of juries, will soon be impossible. In fact, 
there has been no prosecution for some time, although the laws are 
constantly being broken. The first modification will probably be— 
because compromise measures usually come first—to lessen the re- 
striction on the freedom of the medical profession. Such a bill 
would not adequately alter the present city-country disparity in 
birth control because, for obvious reasons, the country doctor is 
less frequently consulted; and, moreover, is himself likely not to 
be abreast of the current developments, which are rapid in this 
field. A bill making the information or the means of birth control 
free is essential to eliminate the difference in the birth-control fac- 
tor between city and country, and it must be supplemented by a 
determined effort of eugenic or other societies to see that the coun- 
try, especially in the southern states, is abreast of the city in these 
practices. It is quite possible that this effort will be somewhat 
thwarted, because the religion of the country is notoriously con- 
servative. The readjusted attitude of religion to birth control 
which has progressed far in the city keeps ahead of the country 
church, which will resist the inevitable for a longer period. 

In contrast with the favorable reproductive aspects of the re- 


THE EUGENICS OF THE CITY 89 


ligious traditions for the city of the Chinese, Jew, and Mormon, 
orthodox Christianity, as we have had it, poorly adapts to the city 
life; for while there is great emphasis on chastity, it leans back- 
ward by approving celibacy. In fact, in the doctrines of the virgin 
birth and the exclusion of marriage or the marriage state from 
heaven it casts disrespect upon reproduction. It has no apparent 
disapproval for childlessness or the too-small family. While there 
is a disapproval of birth control in some Christian cults, it is a 
dysgenic kind of disapproval, for it is too sweeping, and the reason 
given is merely unnaturalness—a reason so sophistical as to influ- 
ence most the unintellectual and not convince the logical thinker, 
who should be dissuaded from his abuse of birth control. 

Not one religious cult today teaches an especial duty of supe- 
riors to reproduce adequately, a duty greater than that of inferiors. 
On the contrary, we have the destructive teachings of Matthew 19 
and I Corinthians 7. A religion for the city should meet the city’s 
greatest evil, the subfecundity of its superiors, and should approve 
the more restricted birth-rate of inferiors that can be achieved only 
by a more general use of birth control. 

We have discussed in passing some aspects of the reception the 
eugenics program receives in the city and county. There are other 
aspects that merit our attention now. The eugenic program is now 
more readily spread in the city, where all contacts are easy and 
where a more receptive ear is open to the new. But on the other 
hand there is a friendly ear for eugenics when it does reach the 
rural reader or hearer, because his experiences with his plants and 
animals have taught him the very great réle of heredity. Heredi- 
tary human differences impress him more than they do city folk 
because, the environment in the country being more similar, he 
more readily recognizes the important role of heredity. In evidence 
of this is the fact that more and earlier papers on eugenics ap- 


90 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


peared in the publications of the American Breeders’ Association 
and its successor than in any other journal in the United States. 

In conclusion, we find that the old belief that the city is more 
dysgenic in that it attracts many superiors from the country and 
then reduces their fecundity is well founded, and the great problem 
for eugenists today is to develop mores by which we can stand city 
life and not have the birth-rate of superiors dragged down by it. 
A wider use of birth-control methods will reduce the rate at which 
the superiors are outbred by the inferiors, but the still more im- 
portant question is, By what means can more children be produced 
from these superiors? No means is in sight except essentially a 
religious one, the inculcation of eugenic conduct as moral conduct. 
If the religious cults will turn from their all-too-common contemp- 
tuous attitude toward sex and indifference to reproduction to a de- 
votion to the eugenic ideal it is probable that an ethics of reproduc- 
tion can be made effective. If not, then the slow process of natural 
selection will develop a species that will have a strong parental in- 
stinct, whatever else they may lack, for of one thing we may be 
sure: future man will have the characteristics of those who are 
superfecund, whether we like it or not. 


ROSWELL H. JOHNSON 
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH 


SOME EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SELECTION ON THE 
AMERICAN NEGRO 


The American Negro, in racial composition, is as mixed a 
population as can be found, perhaps, anywhere in the world. Not 
only is he derived from numerous types of African peoples and 
white populations of Europe, as much different as the English and 
Scotch who settled the eastern seaboard of our southern states and 
the French and Spanish of the extreme South, but he also counts in 
his. ancestry the American Indian to no small extent. That this 
mixture has occurred is not doubted, but that it has been as wide- 
spread as is found has not been realized. The differences in phys- 
ical form among West African peoples are enormous, while the dif- 
ferences among the Europeans and Indians who mixed with the 
Negroes are none the less so. Therefore, before proceeding to dis- 
cuss the effects of social selection it may be well to point out briefly 
what has happened to the Negro in the centuries he has been here, 
and how the African type has been modified in its crossing with 
these two other types. 

In a study of variability under racial crossing, with particular 
reference to the American Negro, I have had occasion to measure 
538 adult males at Howard University in Washington and in New 
York City, and also about 1,500 school children in one of the New 
York public schools.* From these adults I have gathered genealo- 


*The writer wishes to express his gratitude to the President and Faculty of 
Howard University for their numerous courtesies to him in furthering his research, 
and to Dr. Jacob M. Ross, principal of Public School 89, and his staff, for their cour- 
tesies. This research has been carried on as Fellow of the Board in the Biological 
Sciences, National Research Council, and the work in Washington was made possible 
by a special grant of the Committee on Human Migrations, National Research 
Council. 


gi 


92 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


gies which indicate the amount of crossing represented today in the 
Negro population. The classifications and the numbers and per- 
centages of each group, according to their own statements, are as 
follows: 


No % 

ILING RTO coh iaek atete ste icra Sante Rie cops ete ek Sven 10g 20.3 
Negro with Indian dec am cise ween ire eae 36 6.7 
More’ Negro: than wittey.', cto sew es oho ay 129 23.8 
More Negro than white, with Indian.......... 5I 9.6 
About the same amount of Negro and white... 95 ei 
About the same amount of Negro and white, 

with Indian ot. wa ware citi ig a cle nels cane 57 10.6 
More white'than Negro. .e.<eteeenes + le ane 30 5.6 
More white than Negro, with Indian.......... at iy) 


The validity of these genealogies may be denied, but the differences 
in means for distinctive negroid anthropometric traits between the 
groups of differing amounts of Negro ancestry show that they may 
be safely utilized.” It may also be questioned whether this sample is 
large enough to represent the population as a whole, and whether 
it may not be highly selected, since the great majority of the men 
are college students. If the means and variabilities for this series 
be compared with those of the large series measured in the army by 
Davenport and Love’ for stature, sitting height, and hip width, it 
will be found that they are very close, while this is also the case if 
comparison be made for numerous traits measured by me on this 
series and by Professor Todd on a sample of one hundred male Ne- 


* This material has been thoroughly analyzed in an extended paper, “A Study 
of the American Negro,” not yet published. 

*The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World-War, Vol. 
XV, “Statistics,” Part I, “Army Anthropology.” 


SOCIAL SELECTION AND THE AMERICAN NEGRO 93 


gro cadavera representing paupers who died in the hospitals of 
Cleveland, Ohio.* Therefore the usability of this sample cannot be 
gainsaid. It is interesting to note, however, that in a paper studying 
age-changes in skin color’ I found that the color of the Negro school 
children and of the Cleveland pauper sample (allowing for darken- 
ing after death) is quite darker than that of the university stu- 
‘dents. Since color plays an important selective part in Negro life 
it may be well to state here that the percentage of pure Negro given 
above is probably too low for the total population, and that per- 
haps ro per cent should be added to allow for this color selection 
in university men. 

When one takes the series as a whole for such traits as have 
been measured it will be seen that the means for the respective 
traits are somewhere between the means for corresponding traits in 
European and West African populations, and those for such Amer- 
ican Indian populations from the eastern United States as have 
been measured. In other words, what has happened is that there 
has been a blending of the types from which the American Negro 
has come, and that this blended type lies somewhere between the 
three groups. However, in the light of the Mendelian hypothesis, 
the objection will at once be brought that this is a false conclusion, 
perhaps, from the statistical material, and that what we have is a 
series of false means lying between the modes of bimodal, or even 
trimodal, distributions, which would be expected if there were seg- 
regation of types. This is not the case, for the curves are very near 
the normal type, usually unimodal, and show little or no indication 
of segregation. 


*This material was given me through the courtesy of Professor Todd, and has 
not as yet been published. 

° A paper read at the New Haven meeting of the American Anthropological As- 
sociation, December 28, 1925, “Age-Changes in Skin Color of American Negroes.” 


94. THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


One must consider the comparative variabilities of these popu- 
lations before this question can be really discussed. In a mixed 
population such as this, if there were segregation the variability 
of the mixed population would have to be greater than that of any 
of the parent populations. This has been shown to be the case in 
head form, where the variabilities of central Italians is shown to 
be greater than that of the southern or northern inhabitants of 
that country, due to the mixture of long-headed southern Italians 
and short-headed northerners.* In the case of mixed Negro-white 
populations this trait cannot be utilized, since the long head is 
characteristic of both, but in a majority of other traits we see the 
striking result that the variability for the mixed American Negroes 
is about the same or less than that of any of the ancestral popula- 
tions. It is therefore to be argued that segregation of type is not to 
be observed here. And while it is needless to state that the Men- 
delian problem in human heredity is not to be solved by measures 
as rough as these, yet the results obtained from the analysis of this 
sample give food for thought on its relation to the general mechan- 
isms of heredity in humans. 

In any case, what comes out is the homogeneity of the Ameri- 
can Negro. The low variability of the population in trait after trait 
tends to confirm this hypothesis, while a study of the variability of 
family lines through measurements of fraternities of Negro chil- 
dren shows that the variability of family lines in American Negroes 
is as low as that of the Tennessee mountaineers, although the va- 
riability within the families of the American Negroes is very high 
in the list of other populations studied, and attests to the tremen- 

*Franz and Helena Boas, “The Head-Forms of the Italians as Influenced by 


Heredity and Environment,” American Anthropologist, New Series, XV (1913), 
163-88. 


SOCIAL SELECTION AND THE AMERICAN NEGRO 95 


dous differences in ancestral stock represented by these families.” 
Correlation of length and breadth of head,® used as an index of 
homogeneity in a population, again gives us an indication of large 
homogeneity when presented comparatively, and strengthens the 
hypothesis that the American Negro, in the years he lived here and 
mingled with white and Indian stocks with which he was thrown 
into contact, has developed a human type which is different from 
any of the parent types, and that, although called Negro, is a homo- 
geneous blend of the Negro, white, and Indian ancestry he repre- 
sents. 

As this surprising homogeneity developed from the material, 
I strongly felt that if it were valid, inquiry must find a social selec- 
tive process which brought it about. Social motives are complex 
by their very nature, but I believe that there are two principal ele- 
ments which can be singled out of the mores of the Negro and of 
the general population which will adequately account for the phe- 
nomenon. In the first place I do not feel that crossing with whites, 
general opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, is going on to any 
appreciable extent. Out of the six hundred genealogies and more 
which I have collected only about 1 per cent of the individuals have 
a white parent. If we allow for a possible selection due to many 
persons being university men and increase the percentage to 5 per 
cent, this still is almost negligible. As a matter of fact, I find that 
among Negroes the pressure against illicit sexual relations with 
whites is as strong, if not stronger, than the opposite is among the 

"M. J. Herskovits, “A Further Discussion of the Variability of Family Strains 


in the Negro-White Population of New York City,” Journal American Statistical As- 
sociation, New Series, XX, No. 151 (1925), 380-809. 

°M. J. Herskovits, “Correlation of Length and Breadth of Head in Two Groups 
of American Negroes,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, IX (1926), pp. 
87-97. 


96 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


general white population. This would, of course, make for in- 
breeding within the Negro group. 

The other element is the invidious nature of light skin color.° 
The case of the increased lightness of the University students will 
be recalled. There is the well-known fact that light persons are 
found in the college fraternities of the Negroes, for instance, and 
that in many of the more “socially” desirable religious denomina- 
tions the greater number of members are light. The fact comes out 
most strongly in the relationship of the sexes in marriage choices. 
It was suggested to me that light women marry dark men; the men, 
in accordance with our general pattern of this situation, obtaining 
wives who bring them prestige; the women obtaining husbands 
who work hard to retain the regard of their lighter-colored, and 
therefore more desirable, wives. This tendency comes out strongly 
in the results obtained from asking 380 men “Who, of your par- 
ents, is the lighter?”’ Out of three possible answers, 50, or 13 per 
cent, gave their parents as the same color; 115, or 29 per cent, said 
their fathers were lighter; while 215, or 58 per cent, said their 
mothers were lighter. This desirability of non-negroid traits to the 
Negro also comes out in the expressions of ‘“‘good” and “poor” hair 
—the latter being the negroid tightly curled type—and of “good” 
and “broad” features—the latter being the negroid face with the 
thick lips and wide nostrils. ,In other words, there is a combining of 
the extremes of racial types within what is becoming an endoga- 
mous group, and nothing can make more efficiently for homo- 
geneity. 

I believe, therefore, that we have here a striking case of the 
effects of social selection, and that we may conclude from the re- 
sults of this study obtained thus far that: 


*I have discussed this matter at some length in a paper entitled “The Color 
Line,” published in the American Mercury, V1 (October, 1925), 204-8. 


SOCIAL SELECTION AND THE AMERICAN NEGRO 97 


1. There is a tendency to endogamy in the Negro population, and the se- 
lection is based on the invidious nature of non-negroid traits. 

2. That this tendency is operative in a group which has resulted from ex- 
tensive crossing between African, European, and American-Indian stocks. 

3. That the type which has resulted is one which, in most traits, is, on the 
average, somewhere between the African, European, and Indian types. 

4. That the variability of the resulting crossing is not large, as it would be 
expected to be, but 

5. That the American Negro is forming a type which is relatively homo- 
geneous when compared with other populations. 


MELVILLE J. HERSKOVITS 
CoLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


THE DWELLER IN FURNISHED ROOMS: AN 
URBAN TYPE 


THE SOCIAL TYPE 


The social type is the psychological parallel of the biological 
type. In the animal world the struggle for existence, variation se- 
lection, and adaptation—especially when favored by isolation— 
give rise to new biological types. By a biological type we mean 
merely a combination of structural and functional characteristics 
transmitted by heredity. 

Similarly, in the process of social interaction, competition and 
accommodation—particularly when favored by the selective segre- 
gation so characteristic of the city—give rise to social types. By a 
social type we mean a constellation of attitudes forming a person- 
ality pattern, not inherited, but growing out of a social situation.* 

Involved in any analysis of human behavior are three sets of 
factors: the social situation to which the person must adjust, the 
wishes of the person, and the attitudes of the person—constellated 
about certain objects and situations, and integrated into personal- 
ity patterns. We assume that the fundamental wishes of the person 
remain constant, and that the person’s attitudes vary with the so- 
cial situation. The analysis’ of a social type requires, then, a de- 
scription not only of the attitudes characteristic of the type, but of 
the social situation in which the attitudes have been defined. 


THE ROOMING-HOUSE AS A SOCIAL SITUATION 
The natural areas of the city are areas both of selection and of 
characterization. Each natural area tends to be stamped with a 


* For the distinction betwen the biological individual and the social person, see 
Park and Burgess, Au Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 2d ed., chapter i. 


98 


THE DWELLER IN FURNISHED ROOMS 99 


given cultural complex. In the competition for position in the city 
these areas sift and sort the population, tending to draw from its 
mobile stream those persons having attitudes more or less like 
those of the persons already living in the area. But beyond this, 
the natural area tends also to set its mark upon the person living 
in it, to characterize him with certain attitudes and behavior pat- 
terns required in adjusting to the social situation represented by 
the area. 

The rooming-house area, like other areas of the city, tends both 
to select and characterize its population. In selecting its popula- 
tion, it acts chiefly upon age and economic status—perhaps upon 
temperamental traits. As a result the rooming-house population 
represents a diversity of cultural backgrounds. And if the dwellers 
in furnished rooms constitute a social type, they do so largely be- 
cause the rooming-house area is an area of characterization. 

The rooming-house area affords a social situation of a unique 
sort. As an example let us take the rooming-house area on the 
Lower North Side of Chicago.” An analysis of the register of IIli- 
nois lodging-houses reveals the fact that there are 1,139 rooming- 
and lodging-houses on the Lower North Side, and that in these 
houses 23,007 people are living in furnished rooms of one kind and 
another. Ninety blocks in the better rooming area north of Chica- 
go Avenue were studied intensively by means of a house-to-house 
census. This study revealed the additional facts that 71 per cent 
of all the houses in this district take roomers, and that of the peo- 

* The data presented here were collected by the writer when a research fellow 
under the Community Research Fund administered by the Social Research Commit- 
tee of the University of Chicago. They represent a year’s intimate contacts with 
dwellers in furnished rooms as a resident among them, a census of nearly ninety 
blocks in the area, the information afforded by the Illinois state lodging-house regis- 
ter, and the life-history documents of dwellers in furnished rooms in this area. The 


documents from which this data is taken are on file with the Department of Sociol- 
ogy of the University of Chicago. 


100 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


ple who live in these rooms, 52 per cent are single men, Io per cent 
are single women, and 38 per cent are couples, “married,” sup- 
posedly with the benefit of clergy, though actually 60 per cent of 
these couples are living together unmarried. The rooming-house 
area is a childless area. Yet most of its population are in the pro- 
ductive ages of life, between twenty and thirty-five. The rooming- 
house population is typically what the labor leaders refer to as the 
“white collar” group—men and women filling various clerical po- 
sitions, accountants, stenographers, and the like. There are also 
students from the many music schools of the Lower North Side. 
Most of them are living on a narrow margin, and here they can live 
cheaply, near enough to the “Loop” to walk to and from their work 
if they wish. 

The constant comings and goings of its inhabitants is the most 
striking and significant characteristic of this world of furnished 
rooms. This whole population turns over every four months. There 
are always cards in the windows, advertising the fact that rooms 
are vacant, but these cards rarely have to stay up over a day, as 
people are constantly walking the streets looking for rooms. The 
keepers of the rooming-houses change almost as rapidly as the 
roomers themselves. At least half of the keepers of these houses 
have been at their present addresses six months or less. This ex- 
treme mobility results in a startling anonymity, a thwarting of the 
wishes, and a breakdown of public opinion. How complete this 
anonymity may become is illustrated in the following document: 

I had occasion to inquire for a man living in a rooming-house. He had 
roomed there about a week. There was no telephone in the place, so I had to 
call at his address. I went there about 7:30. After I had rung the bell for some 
time a woman about forty-five answered the door. She wore a house apron and 
was evidently the landlady. I asked for Mr. X. She said, “Who?” I repeated 
the name. She shook her head and said that she didn’t know anyone of that 


name. I looked in my notebook, to see if I had the correct address. I told her 
that this was the address he had given, and went on to describe him. She knew 


THE DWELLER IN FURNISHED ROOMS 101 


of two men in the house who might answer to his description. I then told her 
that he did a lot of work on the typewriter in his room. Then she knew whom I 
meant. He was not in. I came back a week later, and the same woman came to 
the door. I asked if Mr. X was in. She said he had moved yesterday. I asked 
her if he might not have left a forwarding address for his mail. She said that 
he did not, that he never got any mail. 


In this mobile and anonymous situation the tendency is for no 
one to know anyone else, as is brought out by this document: 


One gets to know few people in a rooming-house. All told, in the year and 
a half I lived there, I didn’t come to know over twenty well enough to speak to 
them. And there must have been nearly three hundred people in and out in that 
time, for there are constant comings and goings; someone is always moving 
out; there is always an ad in the paper and a sign in the window. But rooms 
are never vacant more than a few hours. People change so fast that there is 
little chance to get acquainted if one wished. But one doesn’t wish—there is a 
universal barrier of distrust in the rooming-house. 


The rooming-house is not to be confused with the old board- 
ing-house, where the common dining-room, the landlady’s parlor 
with evenings of euchre and whist, and the piazza with summer 
evenings of gossip afforded a nucleus of opinion and a set of social 
relationships which afforded satisfaction to the wishes and tended 
to define social situations. The boarding-house has passed out of 
existence in the modern city—not half a dozen were found in this 
Lower North Side district. The rooming-house which has replaced 
it has no dining-room or parlor, no common meeting-place. The 
roomers do not know one another. People come and go without 
speaking or questioning. Anonymity is well-nigh complete. 

In this situation of mobility and anonymity the person is so- 
cially isolated. His wishes are thwarted. He finds in the rooming- 
house neither security, response, nor recognition. He is restless and 
he is lonely. 


102 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


A “charity girl,” in an illuminating life-history document, ex- 
claims: 

There was no one to care! Why should I slave and work when I might 
have the things I wanted? And not the least of these was the intimate touch 
and glance of a man—even if it were only half make-believe—someone to talk 
intimately with; someone to come home to; someone to ask where you’ve 
been; these, too, are things one can’t live without. 


A man who lived in a North Side rooming-house wrote: 


I found myself totally alone. There were evenings when I went out of my 
way to buy a paper, or an article at a drug store, just for the sake of talking a 
few minutes with someone. Worse, if possible, than the loneliness [he goes on] 
was the sex-hunger. I thought of marriage, but the only girls I had met were 
office stenographers I never would have considered marrying. The constant 
stimulation of the city began to tell, adding tremendously to this sexual rest- 
lessness—lights, well-dressed women, billboards advertising shows. 

It got so that posters showing women in negligee, or women’s silk-clad 
legs, excited me unbearably. Many times I followed an attractive woman for 
blocks, with no thought of accosting her, but to watch the movements of her 
body. A girl in the next house used to undress without pulling down her shade, 
and I literally spent hours watching her. 


In addition to resulting in a thwarting of the person’s wishes, 
this mobility and anonymity result, of course, in a total collapse of 
public opinion and social control in the rooming-house area. 


PERSONALITY PATTERNS IN THE WORLD OF FURNISHED ROOMS 


The emotional tensions of thwarted wishes force the person to 
act somehow in this situation. His behavior may take one of three 
directions: He may find himself unable to cope with the situation, 
and attempt to withdraw from it. This withdrawal frequently 
takes the form of suicide. There was a bridge over the lagoon in 
Lincoln Park, in the heart of the North Side rooming-house dis- 
trict, which was nicknamed “Suicide Bridge” because of the num- 
ber of people who threw themselves from it into the lagoon. Be- 


THE DWELLER IN FURNISHED ROOMS 103 


cause of its sinister reputation the city tore it down. A map of the 
distribution of suicides on the Lower North Side shows how fre- 
quently this seems the only way out to the persons of the rooming- 
house world. 

Or, again, the person may build up an ideal, or dream world, in 
which are satisfied the wishes that find no realization in the repres- 
sion of the real world: 

There were two girls in a room across the hall who worked as shopgirls in 
the Loop. They came from some town in southern Illinois. They weren’t good- 
looking—and besides, like myself, they had had good homes—so they were 
lonesome. They used to go often to the movies, and sometimes to a dance, but 
the celluloid heroes proved more satisfying to those plain but heart-hungry 
children than did the neglect of the dance-hall “sheiks.” Other evenings they 
spent reading True Romance, Experience, The True Story Magazine, and other 
such magazines devoted to stories of the adventures of girls in the city. One of 
them kept an intermittent diary, filled with stories—fictitious, I always was 
sure—of street flirtations and adventure. We used to spend evenings writing 
letters to Doris Blake* asking what a young girl should do if a man she liked 
but didn’t love tried to kiss her. It was all a make-believe. 


Or perhaps a substitution is made, and the person finds satis- 
faction for his thwarted wishes in symbols which represent old as- 
sociations—or lavishes his affection on a dog or a parrot: 

She lavished attention on the parrot. She bought it the best cage she could 
find, cared for it according to the best parrot-lore, and returned home after 
work to give it food and exercise. It ate its supper with her, perched outside on 
a basket handle, being fed now and then from her spoon. In the morning it flew 
to the side of the cage to greet her, and talked to her while she dressed. It was 
her child. She sacrificed herself for it. “You can’t imagine,” she would say, 
“what it means to have Polly in my room—it makes all the difference. ... . 

There are thirty-seven things on the wall—mostly pictures, among them a 
photograph of her father’s old stone house, the picture showing the country in 
which she had lived, a cheap print of a child in its nightgown descending the 
stairs, a colored print of a man and woman sitting in the firelight, some family 


* Doris Blake is editor of the “Advice to the Lovelorn” column in the Chicago 
Tribune. 


104 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


pictures. There is a newspaper cartoon of a homeless man on Thanksgiving 
Day, shabby and alone at a cheap restaurant, seeing a vision of a pleasant fam- 
ily group about a generously laden table. There are thirty-nine articles on the 
bureau, two small stands, and a melodian—including a tiny doll and a tiny cra- 
dle. I have urged her to cast away nine-tenths of these things, in the interest 
of her time budget, to make cleaning simpler. “I have to have these things,” 
she responds. “You have your home and family and friends and leisure and 
everything—you can’t possibly understand.” She plays hymns and the old 
songs of the countryside on the melodian—“Darling, I Am Growing Old!” 
The parrot tries to sing after her. 


This clinging to objects symbolic of old associations often 
amounts, among dwellers in furnished rooms, to a sort of fetishism. 

More frequently, though, the person accommodates himself 
to the life of the rooming-house world by an individuation of be- 
havior. Old associations and ties are cut. Under the strain of isola- 
tion, with no group associations or public opinion to hold one, 
living in complete anonymity, old standards disintegrate and life 
is reduced to a more nearly individual basis. The person has to 
live, and comes to live in ways strange to the conventional world: 


I get along fairly well, now. I am no longer lonely. I am surprised to find 
that I can actually enjoy the girls I pick up at public dance-halls, at restau- 
rants, along the lake front, in the park. I know a great many of them now— 
many of them pretty and clever, and good companions for a night. I no longer 
go with prostitutes. I soon found that was unnecessary. For the city is full of 
women who are just as lonely as I was, or who draw on their sex as I would on 
my bank to pay for the kind of clothes they want to wear and the kind of shows 
they want to see. Then, too, there are the “emancipated” women. 


The person tends to act without reference to social definition. 
Behavior is individualized—impulsive rather than social. 

Such is the social situation to which the dweller in furnished 
rooms is attempting to adjust. Such are three typical constellations 
of attitudes and personality patterns that arise as the person at- 


THE DWELLER IN FURNISHED ROOMS 105 


tempts to adjust to this social situation. It is not maintained that 
these constellations of attitudes and personality patterns consti- 
tute—in the instance of the dwellers in furnished rooms—the cri- 
teria of well-defined social types. But if these forms of behavior 
are found in other social situations, nevertheless they are typical 
reactions to the world of furnished rooms, and illustrate the proc- 
ess in which social types are defined. 


Harvey W. ZoRBAUGH 
OxnrIo WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 


SOME JEWISH TYPES OF PERSONALITY 


The sociologist, in transforming the unique or individual expe- 
rience into a representative or typical one, arrives at the social 
type, which consists of a set of attitudes on the part of the person 
toward himself and the group and a corresponding set of attitudes 
of the group toward him, which together determine the réle of the 
person in his social milieu. The extent to which social types may be 
depicted depends upon the definiteness of the organization of the 
attitudes and their characteristic cohesion about a core of signifi- 
cant social traits. The range of the personality types in a given 
social group is indicative of the culture of that group. 


THE JEW AS A SOCIAL TYPE 


Although there is probably no people that has furnished the 
basis for more contradictory conclusions regarding racial and cul- 
tural traits than the Jews, the elementary question as to whether 
the Jews are a race, a nationality, or a cultural group remains un- 
settled. There are those who, with Chamberlain, believe that the 
Jew constitutes a clear racial type whose characteristics are un- 
mistakable.t Hilaire Belloc prefers to think of the Jews not as a 
race but primarily as a nationality. In fact he points out that the 
Jews themselves have called their people a race when it suited 
them, a nationality when necessity demanded it, a religious group, 
and finally a cultural body, by virtue of the historic process, when 
their situation made such a status desirable.”* 

Fishberg sees in the Jew a social type. He writes: 

What is that “Jewish type,” that Jewish physiognomy, which characterizes 
the Jew? It is the opinion of the present author that it is less than skin deep. 

*Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, II, 


537: 
? Hilaire Belloc, The Jews, Boston and New York, 1923. 


106 


SOME JEWISH TYPES OF PERSONALITY 107 


Primarily it is dependent on dress and deportment of the Jews in countries 
where they live in strict isolation from their Christian or Moslem neighbors. 
It is not the body which marks the Jew; it is his soul. In other words, the type 
is not anthropological or physical; it is social or psychic. Centuries of confine- 
ment in the ghetto, social ostracism, ceaseless suffering under the ban of abuse 
and persecution have been instrumental in producing a characteristic psychic 
type which manifests itself in his cast of countenance which is considered pe- 


” 


culiarly “Jewish.”. ... The ghetto face is purely psychic, just like the actor’s, 
the soldier’s, the minister’s face.® 


What is typical of the Jews as a group is their characteristic 
“run of attention,” or the direction of their habits and interests— 
which have become fixed through centuries of communal life in 
segregated areas—and the persistence of a set of cultural traits, 
most significant of which were, perhaps, those relating to their re- 
ligious ritualism, which was fairly uniform throughout the world 
and which pervaded every sphere of life. 


JEWISH TYPES 


Striking as the differences between Jew and non-Jew may be, 
the individual and sectional differences within the Jewish group 
are even greater. The Jews of the East, of Asia, North Africa, and 
Eastern Europe, differ profoundly from those of the West. More- 
over, 


The Jews of any particular country, although exposed to the same general 
influences, are not molded into a uniform pattern. Having settled in the land 
at different periods, and having brought from their previous homes different 
modes of life and different degrees of conservatism, they resist the surround- 
ing influences with unequal will and strength and exhibit varying grades of as- 
similation to the general population. In each individual country, therefore, 
there is a series of classes or types of Jews, shaded off from one another, and 
thus the multiplicity of types in the world forms an almost endless series.* 


* Maurice Fishberg, The Jews: A Study of Race and Environment, p. 162. 
“Israel Cohen, Jewish Life in Modern Times, p. 15. 


108 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


While the Jews of the West have, in varying measure, had the 
opportunity to taste the life outside the ghetto walls, the Jews of 
the East have only gradually and recently come to share some of 
the cultural heritages of their neighbors. The diversity of the 
sources of Jewish immigration to the United States accounts for the 
corresponding multiplicity of Jewish types that are met with in 
every Jewish community in our large cities. These social differen- 
tiations are reflected in the religious, the vocational, and the cul- 
tural aspects of the lives of the people, and result in diverse organ- 
izations of attitudes and habits which are clearly recognizable, not 
only by the observer, but by the members of the group itself. They 
can be detected in the folk-lore and the literature, in the theater 
and the market place; they give rise to many problems of social or- 
ganization and control; they are as complete an index as any at 
present obtainable of the culture traits and the culture pattern of 
the group. 

In this discussion it is scarcely possible to do more than enu- 
merate some of the most characteristic and picturesque personali- 
ties that are met with in the average community. From the stand- 
point of worldly success, especially in the vocational sphere, we 
meet with a personality known as Mensch, or, more specifically, 
the “allrightnick.” Both types represent persons of superior eco- 
nomic status, but while the former has achieved his success with- 
out sacrificing his identity as a Jew, the latter, in his opportunism, 
has thrown overboard most of the cultural baggage of his group 
and, as a consequence, is treated with a certain attitude of disdain. 
The “allrightnick” offends the group because he is no respector of 
its values. The Jews have been so well known as business men ever 
since the Middle Ages that we should be indeed surprised to find 
that this vocational type lacked status, but the “allrightnick”’ rep- 
resents the reprehensible type of business man to whom success is 


SOME JEWISH TYPES OF PERSONALITY iKele) 


everything and in whose life-organization there is no place for any 
of the other forms of achievement that the culture offers. 

Social types seem to run in pairs and may be conceived of as 
opposite poles in a range of attitudes and values. At one end of 
the scale we find the Mensch and the “allrightnick”’; at the other, 
the Schlemiel: 

Although the Jew has acquired the reputation of being the personification 
of the commercial spirit, he is sometimes quite shiftless and helpless, failing 


miserably in everything he undertakes, as though pursued by some mocking 
sprite, and good-humoredly nicknamed by his brethren a Schlemiel.® 


The facility with which the Jew can adapt himself vocational- 
ly to a changing, and sometimes to a hostile, environment has often 
been pointed out: 

If a Jew cannot succeed in one calling he promptly adopts another, and he 
is a veritable “quick-change artist” in the variety of his vocations. He is a ped- 
dler, teacher, commission agent, precentor, and marriage broker by turns, regu- 
larly consoling himself with the thought that “God will help,” and invariably 
ready to help his neighbor. It is in regard to existences such as these that Dr. 
Max Nordau coined the expression Luftmenschen, people whose only apparent 
means of subsistence is the air they breathe.® 


This Luftmensch, who, in America, by virtue of his getting-by 
philosophy, is identified with the hobo, constitutes the bulk of the 
homeless men’s problem with which Jewish social agencies have to 
deal in increasing numbers, probably because in America he can 
find support for his habits and attitudes not only in the traditional 
tolerance and sympathy of his own cultural group, but also in the 
larger group about him. 

There is a type of Jew referred to by the group itself as Schach- 
erjude, more familiarly known as a huckster or peddler. Here we 
find an illustration of the competitive process by which an alien or 

* Cohen, op. cit., p. 186. 

* Ibid., p. 210. 


110 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


immigrant group is relegated to the occupations which to the native 
seem degrading and undesirable, but which to the immigrant rep- 
resent merely the opportunity to eke out an existence. 

A number of vocational types center about that Jewish institu- 
tion, the synagogue. The rabbi, the teacher, the Chazan or cantor, 
the Shochet or slaughterer, the Shamus or sexton (whose place was 
once important and honored but has recently lost its status )—all 
these survive to the present day. There are still some survivors of 
that unique vocational type known as the Schadchen, or marriage 
broker, once an honorable and most useful occupation. These occu- 
pations, arising out of the needs of the group and centering around 
its institutions, tend to assume the character of professions. Even 
the occupation of the Schnorrer or beggar is so organized. The 
philanthropist and the beggar furnish a striking instance of the 
polarity of social types. The insolence of the Jewish beggar, grow- 
ing out of the theory that the recipient of a gift was enabling 
the donor to perform a religious duty and was, in a sense, the bene- 
factor of the donor, made the Schnorrer a most persistent and trou- 
blesome figure in modern Jewish society.’ 

The ideal of intellectuality which, in the ghetto of the Old 
World, produced the type of student known as the Yeshiba Bochar, 
or talmudical student, and the Melammed, or rabbinical teacher, 
persists, though it may be in secular form. In the olden days when 
religious learning was the highest virtue a prosperous merchant 
would prefer a poor but learned student as the future husband for 
his daughter; in the modern ghetto a lawyer, a doctor, an artist, or 
a writer are the prizes that the rich business man will seek for his 
sons-in-law. 

The social type of the intellectual demonstrates that for the 
persistence of a social type there is needed a favorable set of atti- 
tudes and habits in the cultural group. There can be intellectuals 


"Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, pp. 310-11. 


SOME JEWISH TYPES OF PERSONALITY III 


only in a community that prizes them, supports them by means of 
its wealth, admiration, and status. If the community consists only 
of ignoramuses the intellectuals leave it and seek those freer and 
more cosmopolitan centers, usually in the largest cities, where in- 
tellectuality is rewarded and can find a favorable habitat. As eco- 
nomic success and social status become more and more the highest 
ideals of the group, intellectuality ceases to serve as a means for 
obtaining prestige, and the intellectual as a social type is trans- 
formed and ultimately becomes extinct. 

At the opposite extreme in the scale of values in the Jewish 
community stands the Groberjung, or the uncouth, uneducated in- 
dividual who has no appreciation for intellectuality. Be he rich or 
poor, his place in the social scale is a humble and obscure one. 

There is scarcely a ghetto community that does not support 
and attract to its midst a pious, patriarchal personage known as 
the Zaddik whose exemplary conduct is pointed to as an example 
worthy of emulation on the part of the young. He is held in high 
esteem and sometimes is lavishly rewarded with gifts of the mate- 
rial sort. At the opposite pole we find the apostate, or Meshumed, 
who is scorned and frequently ostracized from the community. 
There is also a type known as the Kleikodeshnik, the person who 
makes piousness his profession, and who, behind a mask of con- 
formity to the ritual, lives upon and exploits a credulous public 
until discovered. Other types arising out of the religious complex 
of the group are the Schonerjid, the conservative, learned, though 
idle, person; the Staatsbalabos, or the patriarchal leader; the Kol- 
boinik, or the personification of all wickedness; and the Gottskos- 
sak, or the self-appointed judge of the piety of the members of the 
community. 

Other well-defined types are the Lodgenik, or the joiner; the 
Genosse, who preaches socialism in and out of season; the Kibizer, 
or the genial, idle joker; the Lepicheche, or the gossip; the “so- 


II2 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


ciety-lady”; the Radikalke, or the young lady from the ghetto, of 
the garrulous kind and emancipated ways, quoting from authors 
she has not read, very free, unmarried, and ugly. 

From the point of view of the assimilative process there are 
several well-known types, who, arranged in a series, mark the 
transition from the ghetto Jew to the one who has definitely left 
the ghetto walls behind him and to whose children the social her- 
itages of the ghetto will appear stranger than fiction. The Deit- 
chuk, or the person affecting German background and German 
ways, and the O¢ofot, or the person who is almost emancipated but 
clings to a little beard, are typical of these intermediate stages. 

These social types, ranging themselves in clusters or constella- 
tions, each with his little patronage or audience that calls him forth 
and perpetuates him, each changing as the attitudes and habits of 
the group undergo transformation and being lost as he passes from 
one group to another, constitute the social topography of the Jew- 
ish community. Through the sifting and allocation that goes on in 
the city they find their location in the different areas of settlement 
that make up the immigrant colony. Together they constitute the 
personal nuclei around which the fabric of the culture of the group 
is woven. A detailed analysis of the crucial personality types in 
any given area or cultural group shows that they depend upon a set 
of habits and attitudes in the group for their existence and are the 
direct expressions of the values of the group. As the life of the 
group changes there appears a host of new social types, mainly out- 
growths and transformations of previous patterns which have be- 
come fixed through experience. 

Louis WIRTH 

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 


Tit 
STATISTICS OF THE CITY 


if 


NI ane ce a 


@ 
hd 


, by aa 


A REDEFINITION OF “CITY” IN TERMS OF 
DENSITY OF POPULATION 


In redefining a word already in common use, like “‘city,” so as 
to make it serviceable for scientific purposes, one might begin with 
its vague popular meaning and attempt to give it the precision 
needed in a technical term and at the same time keep close to the 
current meaning, or one might begin with a theoretical analysis 
and so decide what characteristics need emphasis in the definition. 
In defining city, both in this country and in Europe, the former 
procedure has been followed. Starting with the dictionary state- 
ment that a city is a large and important town, the main effort has 
been to decide how large or populous a town must be in order to 
count as a city for statistical or sociological purposes. 

In American census practice a city is an incorporated place 
having a population larger than a specified number. Originally that 
number was 8,000; then it was reduced, first to 4,000 and after- 
wards to 2,500, where it now remains. In European practice the 
line is usually drawn at a population of 2,000. Weber holds that 
the village or incorporated place of less than 8,000 or 10,000 ih- 
habitants should not count as a city, at least for international com- 
parisons, and prefers to define city as an incorporated place with 
10,000 inhabitants or more. 

To this definition I have no fundamental objection. But my 
thinking on the subject has been aided by approaching the question 
along the other road and asking, not what is the common meaning 
of city and how may it be made exact, but what is the essential 
characteristic of a city population or the essential difference be- 
tween that and a country population. 

*A. F. Weber, The Growth of Cities (1899), pp. 2-16. 


II5 


116 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


To this question I would give the following answer. A country 
population derives its support from the land it uses. That land pro- 
duces either the food and other necessaries needed by its workers 
or other things which can be exchanged for necessaries. When the 
population becomes larger than can thus be supported, urban con- 
ditions begin to appear, and as the excess population grows those 
conditions become more marked. In other words, the contrast be- 
tween country and city is essentially the contrast between agricul- 
ture and other means of livelihood, first as a supplement to agricul- 
ture and later as substitutes for it. It is true, of course, that when 
the population increases the local community thus created feels a 
need for greater governmental powers and obtains a charter as a 
village or other municipal corporation. But this is a secondary 
change. There are many unincorporated villages, and if their pop- 
ulation could be obtained by a census, as the New York State cen- 
suses of 1855 and 1865 and the federal censuses of 1870 and 1880 
attempted to do, I would favor excluding these also from the rural 
population. 

The agricultural population, after a district has become well 
settled, maintains a relation to area which is comparatively per- 
sistent for a given region and period, but varies with the type of 
agriculture and the standard of living of the farming population. 
Consequently there is a density of population above which a pure- 
ly farming community does not rise. When that density is passed 
it indicates that other means of livelihood are supplementing agri- 
culture, and the density thereafter may rise indefinitely or at least 
is without a normal maximum. If this be so, it apparently fol- 
lows that, theoretically, the division line between city and country 
should be determined by density of population. 

My argument will be clarified by an illustration. In 1920 
Tompkins County, New York, contained two places which might 


A REDEFINITION OF “CITY” Loy, 


be regarded as cities. One of them, Ithaca, having about 17,000 in- 
habitants, was included in the city tables of the census; the other, 
Groton, having somewhat less than 2,500 inhabitants, was classi- 
fied with the country districts. Yet as the former included more 
than seven times as much area as the latter the density of popula- 
tion in Groton was somewhat greater than in Ithaca. From what I 
know of the population of the two places I judge that conditions in 
Groton are urban rather than rural, and that its residents should 
be regarded as part of the urban population of the county, state, 
and country. 

In each of thirty-five divisions of the county the area has been 
measured, the population counted, and the density of population 
computed.” Nearly 98 per cent of the area of the county is settled 
with a density of between eighteen and forty-five persons to a 
square mile, or between 14 and 35 acres per capita. This is clearly 
the agricultural or rural section. Then come five incorporated vil- 
lages and the most sparsely settled district of Ithaca with a total 
area of 6.3 square miles, a population of 3,500, and a density rang- 
ing between 300 and 861 to a square mile, or between four-fifths of 
an acre and slightly more than 2 acres per capita. This may be re- 
garded as the village population in which agriculture, either on the 
village territory or on adjacent land, is an important, but not the 
dominant, occupation, and in which the importance of agriculture 
decreases as the density of population increases. Lastly, we have 
the rest of the county, including Ithaca without its village section, 
and Groton. These fourteen districts cover 4 square miles and have 
a density of population between 1,800 and 18,000, or between 
three and thirty persons per acre. They are the truly urban section 
in which agriculture has become an unimportant or impracticable 
occupation. 


* This was made possible by a grant from the Heckscher Foundation for the 
Promotion of Research, in Cornell University. 


This leads to the following classification of the population of 


118 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 
Tompkins County in 1920:° : 


Popula- Average 


Number of Range of A 
‘hes Density per 


Districts Density Area 


Square Mile 
Country Districts Leap els 18-45 465.7 13,543 29 
Village Districts . : = 6 300-861 6.3 3,500 556 
City Districts ADE eis Peg ta | 1888-18050 4.0 18,235 4559 
Total HE tee beenora ECL N Ue Aad. Gantt e 476.0 35,278 74 


When a similar analysis is made of the density and distribution 
of population in other counties I believe that the results will usual- 
ly be similar to the above. 

If the fundamental difference between country and city is, as 
I believe, the difference between agriculture and the group of other 
occupations, then the best line between city and country is a den- 
sity of population below which agriculture must be almost the only 
occupation and above which it is unimportant or absent. 

The definition of city here suggested cannot be generally ap- 
plied at present or in the immediate future because, until the top- 
ographic map of the United States or any smaller area to be studied 
has been published and the requisite areas have been defined upon 
it and measured, the density of population cannot be computed for 
the small districts this definition requires. None the less, I think it 
advantageous to look forward to this definition as an attainable 
and desirable goal, perhaps not to displace, but at least to supple- 
ment and interpret, our present crude distinction between city and 
country. 

It will be noticed that the division between city and country 
would depend upon the fertility of the soil, the intensity of its cul- 
tivation, and the standard of living of the agricultural population. 
No common density point could be used in America, Europe, and 


* The detailed figures on which this table is based are given at the end of the 
article. 


A REDEFINITION OF “CITY” TIQ 


Asia, as the division between rural and urban or semi-urban, and 
perhaps none for the various parts of the United States. Still, the 
point could be easily fixed for a large area and a specified date pro- 
vided the density of population of a large number of small areas 
was available. The agricultural districts would all have a low and 
comparatively uniform density, the other districts would have a 
much higher average density and a wide range above the minimum. 

The present classification is false to the facts in being a dichot- 
omy, either city or country, whereas many districts show charac- 
teristics of both. The suggested definition lends itself admirably to 
a threefold classification: the country or agricultural districts, the 
villages in which both agriculture and other occupations are im- 
portant, and the cities from which agriculture has been crowded 
out. They might be defined as follows: 

The country includes all districts in which the density of popu- 
lation per square mile is less than 100 and in which presumably 
agriculture is almost the only occupation. 

The villages include all districts in which the density of popu- 
lation per square mile ranges from 100 to 1,000, and in which agri- 
culture and other occupations coexist but with a diminishing im- 
portance of agriculture until, at the higher limit, it disappears. 

The cities include all districts in which the density of popula- 
tion per square mile is more than 1,000 and in which there is prac- 
tically no agriculture. 

This suggestion for a redefinition of city may be compared with 
one in an issue of Die Bevoélkerung der Erde* which was devoted to 
the statistics of cities, Ortsstatistik. In the preface to that work 
Supan wrote: ‘Places with more than 2,000 inhabitants are usual- 
ly called cities in the economic sense; French official statistics have 
adopted this practice. But we believe that the numerical limit be- 


*Petermann’s Mittheilungen Erginzungsband, XXIII (1893), Heft No. 107. 


120 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


tween city and country is a fluctuating one and rises with increas- 
ing density of population.” In accordance with this conviction Su- 
pan treated as cities, in very sparsely settled regions, all places 
with more than 1,000 inhabitants; in sparsely settled districts he 
set the limit at 2,000; and in densely settled districts, at 5,000. The 
present suggestion looks toward an inductive study of the actual 


DENSITY OF POPULATION IN EACH OF THIRTY-FIVE SUBDIVISIONS 
OF TOMPKINS COUNTY, NEW YORK (1920) 


sraare ages al pe memel coed es Population Popaletin 
Country Districts 
ryShy ea ee soy ryden 46.37 849 18 
IO7T wills » Newfield 58.57 1,154 20 
72 ee ee any, 54.18 1,145 og 
TIO te 2. he fae LG 37.02 866 23 
27ST Nie OR ery Ger 19.09 487 26 
Tole tt Le oeeGaroune 27.86 809 20 
T7G4 A as) aout GATOUNE 25.46 733 20 
TAS se a rer eee OOTY Cen 26.06 840 32 
TOO Meroe. ee . Ulysses 24.75 852 34 
74S Liew thee) ed GTOtOn 22.49 764 34 
TOS va eee ULYSSES 7.03 241 34 
TOSSa ee ee ee Leasing: 30.08 1,449 a7 
17 7 eee ee GTOLOM 26.80 1,123 42 
TOON ane ee eee ANSIN & 21.79 931 43 
TOA ||P mete ee rene RLtUDaACcay Lown 29.16 1,300 45 
otal. wae ; er A05.7 5 13,543 29 
Village Districts 
t74(part). . Freeville I.O1 303 300 
I97 (part) . . Newfield 88 302 343 
194 (part). . Cayuga Heights 44 179 407 
173 and 175 (parts) Dryden 1.62 907 UD 437 
198 (part) . . Trumansburg 1.18 I,OII 857 
180 |. 2 . Ithaca 1.16 998 861 
LOtaioe.: 0 "ole. i et es 6.29 3,500 556 
(Continued on Page 121) 
* Excluding Dryden and Freeville villages. § Excluding Freeville village. 
+ Excluding Newfield village. || Excluding Trumansburg villgae. 


¢ Excluding Dryden and Freeville villages. { Excluding Cayuga Heights village. 


A REDEFINITION OF “CITY” 121 


DENSITY OF POPULATION—Continued 


GDEGetn Tae Toes Square Miles Population Popilstion 
City Districts 
0 Le ee ee LENA Cal 76 1,435 1,888 
Tt eer ee eee CN aACA 39 773 1,982 
TO3 (ee TEeT i este ee thaca .70 2327 3,324 
170 ee eee eee Groton 59 2,235 3,788 
TSO See Lthaca 52 2,146 4,126 
meh gag gg) Wherever a 968 4,609 
TSsvene : ee lLthacd ars 976 6,507 
TS 2 er ee LD ACa, 16 1,106 6,875 
TS 3 aya yee eee CN ACa, 02 863 7,192 
TSA ee ee Lhaca .07 853 12,186 
T OOM ; «  Itdoverer .08 982 124275 
1S eerie eee thaca 07 860 12,286 
2 et ee LOA Ca. ie 1,628 13,567 
TOOmTe aes) eee Chace, .06 1,083 18,050 
(Lota eae <i) Maley ete 3s 4.00 18,235 4,559 
Grand: Cottage sete aoa 476.00 35,278 44 


conditions in a given state or country as the means for determining 
where the line or lines should be drawn. 


WALTER F. WILLCOox 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 


AMERICAN CITY BIRTH-RATES 


It has long been known that cities grow more rapidly than 
rural communities. Three factors contribute to urban expansion: 
(1) extension of territory, (2) surplus immigration, and (3) excess 
of births over deaths. Omitting the first two, let us see how fast 
American cities increase by producing their own generations. 

Urban death-rates, at most ages for both sexes, exceed those 
for country dwellers of the same race.” Also, the proportion of mar- 
ried persons fifteen years of age and over is generally less in 
American cities than in rural sections.’ These two facts would sug- 
gest lower genetic rates for towns than for the open country. But 
on the other hand census data show that cities have a dispropor- 
tionately large percentage of people between the ages of fifteen and 
forty-five.t Moreover, towns include more than their share of for- 
eigners, whose birth-rates are higher than those of natives.° These 
conditions tend to reduce crude death-rates and to exaggerate state- 
ments of urban natality. To adjust crude rates for differences in 
composition of population we need standard birth-rates by age, 
nativity, and race of mothers, comparable to specific mortality 
tables. 

It is difficult to find such tables applicable to varying conditions 
in the United States. However, by basing the average number of 
legitimate births to mothers of given age, nativity, and color in the 
registration area for 1919-20, upon the total number of married 

1See Weber, Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century, chap. ii. 

2See United States Life Tables, 1901-10, pp. 104-11; United States Abridged 
Life Tables, 1919-20, pp. 12-15. 

*See Fourteenth Census, Vol. I, pp. 576-77. 

* Tbid., p. 371. 

®See United States Birth Statistics (1921), pp. 14-16. 


122 


AMERICAN CITY BIRTH-RATES 123 


women in the registration states® (classified in like groups), accord- 
ing to the 1920 census, we have a set of useful natality indexes. See 
Chart I. 

These figures would be more dependable if they included more 
years of experience, because the number of births in 1919 was un- 


CHART I 


LEGITIMATE BIRTH-RATES, REGISTRATION AREA, 1919-20 


20 
NATIVE WHITE 

LEGIT. BIRTHS | 80798] 277861 | 435235) 137893 
MARRIED WOMEN| 26001 6| 129102! |3502244|2872021 


AV. AN. RATE -31074} .21523} 12427] .04801 


FOREIGN WHITE | 
11075] 71361] 182937] 74903 
25012] 208058] 838653] 830839 


| BIRTHS 
WOMEN 
NEGRO 
BIRTHS 10870 13238 
WOMEN 32848] 127610] 243936/] 193369 


06846 


usually low. They would also be more accurate if they comprised 
the issue of women of unclassified ages, and if supplemented by 
indexes for illegitimate births.” But use of data for 1921 and 1922 
is difficult because the statistics for these years combine legitimate 
and illegitimate births, and also fuse Negroes with other colored 
people. The figures for illegitimacy show a tendency to scatter in 
the upper ages and to vary widely from year to year. Distributing 


° Excluding Nebraska (added to registration area in 1920). 


"Refinement might also be introduced for husbands’ ages, duration of marriage, 
and previous offspring. 


124 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


mothers of unknown age according to proportions of those classi- 
fied is a doubtful aid to accuracy. The indexes presented account 
for 95.24-+ per cent of more than 2,850,000 births (within two 
years) in a census population of nearly 62,000,000. 

Having roughed out these tools, what can we do with them? In 
the absence of specific local natality rates we can use these indexes 
as norms to adjust crude birth-rates for differences in composition 
of population, as standard mortality rates are applied to find the 
comparative incidence of death in dissimilar communities.* For in- 
stance, the average birth-rate for the registration area in 1919-20 


TABLE I 
A B A-—B 
Birth-Rate Death-Rate Genetic Rate 
re. Crudegsgic anit oe Wired Nae be 23.5 Tate 10.4 
auc A CjUSteC sana iis ines mated es 19.1 14.5* 4.6 
ae Difrerencesr. ge Uren ntemas lean lee —4.4 +1.4 —5.8 
4. Percentage of crude rate (3/1) 18.7 10.7 55.8 


*United States Mortality Rates, 1910-20, p. 15. 


is 23; the calculated urban rate on registration experience is 25, 
and the calculated rural rate is 20. The computed rates divided 
into the general one give adjustment factors of .9 and 1.13, re- 
spectively, for all cities and country sections in the United States.’ 
Applying these factors to the average crude birth-rates for urban 
and rural communities at this time, we find that their order of mag- 
nitude is reversed. The crude urban rate, 23.2, becomes 21; and 
the crude rural ratio, 22.8, becomes 25.8. In brief, judged by the 
potential fertility of their population upon the basis of experience 
in the registration area, cities as a whole were not producing their 
full share of children. In fact, they were furnishing only about 84 

8 See Newsholme, Vital Statistics (1924), pp. 86-87; also Whipple, Vital Statis- 
tics (1923), pp. 246-49; and Knibbs, Mathematical Theory of Population, pp. 236-44. 


* Assuming that the composition of population in all places having 2,500 inhabi- 
tants or more (the census basis) does not differ materially from that in places com- 
prising 10,000 persons or more (the basis of birth statistics). 


———oor ee 


AMERICAN CITY BIRTH-RATES 125 


per cent of their quota, and were adopting a large proportion of 
those born outside. 

Take a specific instance. In 1920 the rates for New York City 
were as shown in Table I. 

It is only fair to state that adjustment of birth-rate was made 
by the method before used, which probably enlarges divergence 
from the crude figure. As a matter of convenience the adjusted 
death-rate was taken directly from the United States Mortality 
Rates, which uses the standard population method. This latter 
probably minimizes the difference for a mixed population like that 
of New York. Such combination of methods may therefore yield 
a result which is compensated for aberration in either direction. 

The purpose here is not to attempt to prove that the actual fig- 
ure for rate of increase by excess of births over deaths is wrong, but 
merely to give some adequate idea of what this rate would be if 
birth-rate were not reinforced by the presence of so large a propor- 
tion of young mothers; and if high death-rates at each age were 
not masked by the large percentage of men and women in the vigor 
of youth. 

The calculated genetic rate, therefore, is not the statement of 
an objective fact, any more than a discounted note equals its face 
value. It is simply a quantitative expression for the consequences 
of a supposition, namely, that a population like that of New York 
City in 1920 would probably show some such tendency, if deduc- 
tions were made for its unusual composition. For scaling down its 
excrescences, registration-area experience can be used as a reason- 
able basis of measurement. 

In 1790 the population of New York was 49,401; in 1920 it 
was 5,620,048. That is an increase of 114 times at an average rate 
of .037 per annum, which doubles the number in nineteen years. 
See Chart IT, line 1. 


126 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


Now if we apply the crude genetic rate for 1920 to the local 
population in 1790, within 130 years their offspring would amount 
to about 190,000 (less than four times the base).*° If we apply the 


CHART II 


PopuLaTION, NEw York City 


POEtTA0 CERI ASTRA BEEN GR ET LGN eT 
2 GENETIC RATE BEE a TE a a 
We a ae 
3 ADJUSTED '' 1920 [ese 
ee ee ee es ae ee ee 
A I OE ET Re a Ee WE ee a eR 
GMD CLT NT AAA ST PARA AAT MET WET Pe 
ROL EPO EAN ESD OU CN A ETB Rose 
VERE DG a i co A TI FEE 
eS 08 
SS SS hE 
sitet rake ead ee | 
OR Ss SE a ee a ee ee 
oR ae aie torte a 
1790 1920 


adjusted rate, it yields about 90,000 (less than twice the original 
number ).** In other words, if the 1920 rate of natural increase had 
prevailed, the early inhabitants of New York might have produced 
about 31% per cent of the recent population. Or, if this perform- 
ance is discounted for favorable marital composition, they might 


* See line 2 in Chart [J. 
* Line 3, ibid. 


ee 


AMERICAN CITY BIRTH-RATES iy, 


claim credit as ancestors of only sixteen persons in every thousand 
in the city. Obviously immigration accounts for most of the growth. 

The total movement of city population may be likened to the 
course of a ship sailing down a river, propelled by engines, sails, 
and the current. If we compare migration to the flow of the stream 
and regard excess births, due to a favorable proportion of mothers, 
as the pull of the canvas, then adjusted genetic rates represent the 
speed due to the motors alone. Cities appear to make rapid head- 
way from the push of these external forces rather than from excep- 
tional vital energy developed within. We may say that cities trans- 
form more physical power for social use than they generate. 

Applying this comparison to Chart II, we may regard it as the 
log of the good ship New York City for a thirteen days’ run. Then 
the upper line, 1, represents her speed throughout the voyage. The 
distance between lines 1 and 2 shows the rate of drift due to favor- 
ing currents. The interval between lines 2 and 3 indicates accelera- 
tion by favorable winds, as estimated from their velocity during 
the last night watch. The slant of line 3 measures the duty of her 
engines, as tested by counting the revolutions of her propellers for 
a few hours. Now if this test can be applied to her performance 
throughout the trip, the old boat floated a farther distance than she 
could have made by her own headway within three months. Inter- 
preting these apocryphal days in terms of years, the figures mean 
that, at the unaccelerated genetic rate, the city of New York would 
not have produced the population enumerated here in 1920 within 
a thousand years after 1790. 

Take as another example a young city of rapid growth. In 1870 
Seattle had a population of 1,100; in 1920 it numbered more than 
315,000—a turnover of 286 times within fifty years. Clearly this 
increase far surpasses ordinary rates of human fecundity. 

If the age composition of this population in 1920 is compared 
with that of a stationary group of the same size maintained by 


128 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


births only and diminished by death alone,” striking differences 
appear. See Chart III. 


TABLE II 
Census Stationary 
Population Group 
(Percentage) (Percentage) 
Under 2o/vearsuea ene. ee er 20 33 
zoto 50 years . : : “ Z : 55 4I 
Overiso-yecatsae tint cl ae ne os 16 26 


Here again is evidence of extensive urban immigration. 

The large proportion of people between the ages of twenty and 
fifty should yield a low crude death-rate and a high crude birth- 
rate for the city. As a matter of fact the average birth-rate for the 
years considered was 19, and the death-rate, 10, leaving an appar- 
ent genetic rate of 9 per mille per annum. In comparison, our 
imaginary static population would have a birth- and death-rate of 
nearly 17.57. Evidently Seattle has been more successful in main- 
taining life than in producing it. | 

If we consider the number of persons born in the city and sur- 
viving at mortality rates for 1920,*° we find that about 24 per cent | 
of the last census population might have been produced locally. 
However we are confident that this figure represents the maximum. : 
Only within the last twenty years have annual births equaled the 
population under one year of age. Many young children have re- 
cently come to the city, and others born therein have moved away.*° 


“Seattle life-table calculated from deaths registered in 1919-20, and age dis- 
tribution of the fourteenth census. 

*8 See line 3 in Chart III. 

** Approximately the proportion of those born in the state (23.9 per cent), as 
given by the fourteenth census. It is estimated that 55 per cent of the population in 
1920 moved into the city after 1900. 

** Comparing 1920 returns with our figures for surviving local births, we find 
the following net migration: 


Census pares Net Migration Proportion 
Under 2 years...... 0,845 11,149 —1304 (out) 11.7 per cent of Births removed 


Two to 10 years... .38,106 33,592 +4514 (in) 11.8 per cent of Population added 


AMERICAN CITY BIRTH-RATES eh 


The data presented indicate how large is the migratory popula- 
tion of urban centers. The facts concerning genetic rates show that 
city mothers in general have not been producing their quota of suc- 
cessive generations. When adjusted by standard experience, city 


CHART III 


POPULATION, SEATTLE, 1920 


~J 


' CENSUS 


o 


2 STATIONARY 


ae 
he 
Ba 
we 
Re 
By 
Re 
itt 


ees a 


death-rates are higher, and their birth-rates lower, than crude fig- 
ures disclose. Only by the calculation and use of specific local 
mortality and natality tables can we discover the actual trend of 
life in these expanding areas of intense social pressure. 

In conclusion, the following table and chart are presented to 
illustrate the use of specific birth-rates for analyzing and com- 
paring tendencies of natality in a typical city. Data for Wash- 


130 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


ington are readily segregated in federal statistics because the urban 
District of Columbia is a unit of enumeration, like a state. The 
table is self-explanatory, and serves to interpret the graph. The 
District of Columbia 

Registration Area 
values in the table, arranged to show their interrelation. 


latter is simply a spatial representation of the 


TABLE III 
LEGITIMATE BirTH-RateEs 
DIstTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND REGISTRATION AREA, 1919-20 


MorHers’ AGEs 
15-44 E5-10 9) 920-24 25-34 35-44 


All Classified: 
District of Columbia y2\y4)) sey) eines wed FOE 0 a3d10 8 0S UlreT 100 Seea0L 
Registration Area ; T2020 2322s LOL A2 3 een 72 
District of Columbia/ Revistration’ ree 85 1.06 89 84 68 
Native White: 
District of Columbia" (0.815, 9-47 is. s LOS 7a) e250) 2 E00 war tae ae any 
Registration Area : TT VOW) PS L0 fee 2152 et 243 OZ OO 
District of Columbia/ Revitation: Area .92 1.05 I.01 .98 72 
Foreign White: 
District:of Columbia. ays. : SPORTS 2310.3 75910 2003 eT O30 LO 720 
Registration Area ; 55750 ue 4425.0 3430) alot O002 
District of Columbia/ Rereoation: Area 81 86 87 89 80 
Negro: 
District of Columbia’ 31) /¢ yr 2 yy 06) 1024) 30340 Ga 7t2) 0074s OA0F 
Registration Area A : 5T430.000-3300 18.205 7 an TACs mee OUGS 
District of Columbia/ Résisration: Aree Gis 1.10 79 66 59 


In Chart IV all rates for the registration area are taken as 
unity, and divergencies of local rates from this common base are 
reckoned in percentages. If the reader remembers that each several 
rate for Washington is compared with its own corresponding value 
for the larger area, its relative position can be located at a glance. 
Thus, beginning at the upper left-hand corner, we find that in the 
District of Columbia the birth-rate for married colored girls be- 
tween the ages of fifteen and twenty averaged ro per cent higher 


AMERICAN CITY BIRTH-RATES 13 
than the rate for the same class in the whole area. Continuing 
downward to the right, we see that the Washington rate for all three 

CHART IV 


BirTH-RATES, WASHINGTON, 1919-20 


O NATIVE WHITE 
® FOREIGN 
® NEGRO 


REGISTRATION AREA 


usm 
TRS WASHINGTON 


| 


AGE t= 15-45 


15 2OMAGCE SON le 145 


classes of married women between twenty and twenty-five years 
was I1 per cent below par; that for all classes of married women 
between fifteen and forty-five it fell 15 per cent; and for all foreign 
white wives it was only 81 per cent of their normal expectancy. 
The graph shows clearly how great the proportionate difference 


132 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


is for each population class, and indicates (by the broken diagonal 
line) a tendency for such divergence to increase in a negative direc- 
tion with the age of the mothers. Moreover, it appears (from the 
dashed lines) that at this time in Washington the foreign-born 
white and Negro married women as a whole fell below their respec- 
tive registration-area natality norms more markedly than did na- 
tive white mothers. 

Comparison of similar or divergent tendencies in other cities 
would be interesting and instructive. Further differentiation of 
groups and correlation of their vital indexes with local circum- 
stances might lead to better understanding of the direction of hu- 
man development in urban centers. This paper is presented with 
the hope that it may stimulate more careful study of vital rates and 
suggest more accurate methods of measuring their trends. 


H. B. WooLsTton 
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 


SOME ECONOMIC FACTORS IN THE DETERMINATION 
OF THE SIZE OF AMERICAN CITIES 


The particular economic factors here dealt with are certain 
measurements of industry used in the United States census of man- 
ufactures: the value of manufactures, the value added in the proc- 
ess of manufacturing, the value of the raw materials used, the ag- 
gregate of wages, the amount of “primary horse-power.” Other 
economic factors, such as various measures of commerce and trade 
—bank clearings, car loadings, tonnage of freight by land or water 
—are not considered, though their pertinence is not denied. This 
study undertakes to discover the degree of correlation between the 
size of urban populations and these various quantitative aspects of 
industry. Of course there is a causal relationship between com- 
merce and industry. No industrial city consumes all of its own 
manufactured goods, nor produces all of its raw materials. It must 
therefore have commerce with the outside; and of course the mere 
handling of its own products for local consumption occupies num- 
bers of workers. Hence the commercial factor in the determination 
of urban sizes calls for analysis too, in so far as data are available. 

The method used in this study is that of the utilization of the 
Pearson correlation coefficient and of the correlation ratio. But 
before discussing the results of the study certain facts of a purely 
statistical nature must be touched on. 


A. THE TYPE OF THE DISTRIBUTIONS 


If the cities of the United States with 2,500 inhabitants and 
over in 1920 are classified according to size, the largest class is be- 
tween 2,500 and 5,00o—nearly half of all of them; slightly over 
one-fourth are between 5,000 and 10,000, about one-sixth between 


133 


134 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


10,000 and 25,000, and less than one-twentieth between 25,000 and 
50,000. Graphically they fall into a reversed J curve, which tends 
to be asymptotic with the X-axis. This study is limited to those 
10,000 or over in size; in the 1910 census no cities of over 100,000 
are considered; three coefficients are worked out for cities of over 
100,000 in 1920; the remainder are limited as for 1910. This limi- 
tation is deliberate. The largest cities, because of their extreme size 
and small number, would have too great an influence upon the co- 
efficients to permit a fair conclusion for cities as a whole. 

In the cases of the cities of 10,000 and over, distribution of 
each of the measures of industry is found to fall into this same 
general reversed J type, the frequency of the group of lowest val- 
ues being in all cases larger, and in most cases very much larger, 
than that of the next group of larger values. 

The problem of correlation by the use of the product-moment 
method is considerably complicated (at least in interpretation of 
results) by these facts. The reliability of the Pearson Y, as meas- 
ured by the probable error, is based on the assumption of at least a 
rough approximation of the two variables to a normal or Gaussian 
distribution. It is clear that in the case of this material this assump- 
tion is entirely untenable. A similar case, however, is found in the 
fact that nearly all the economic statistics involving the use of cor- 
relation in time series (as was pointed out by Professor Persons in 
his presidential address before the American Statistical Society in 
1923) must be interpreted with great care, because another funda- 
mental assumption, that of random selection, is obviously not ten- 
able there. 

Naturally, then, the correlation tables reflect the type of the 
original distribution. The cells of the table containing the lowest 
values of X and Y contain an overwhelmingly large proportion of 
the cases. As the values increase the cases become relatively fewer 


ECONOMIC FACTORS AND SIZE OF CITIES 135 


in both X and Y directions, and empty cells are more numerous; 
the table tends to spread out in a rough fan-shape. 

This type of distribution tends also to introduce a factor of ex- 
aggeration in the coefficients due to the undue importance which 
cases at the extremes have in determining the value of the product 
moments. Moreover, because of the concentration of the cases in 
the smaller-value classes, the means are located near the smallest 
values of the distributions instead of near the middle of them; the 
great mass of the cases is located in the positive quadrants of the 
tables. For similar reasons the standard deviations tend to be large, 
and so to neutralize the high positive values of the product-mo- 
ments. 

B. LINEARITY 


What significance linearity of correlation has in the case of 
non-normal distributions is difficult to say. With few exceptions 
the points indicating the mean values of X (population) for the 
several values of Y (the other variable) tend to lie along straight 
lines through the more dense sections of the tables; but at the ex- 
tremes they turn more or less sharply in a positive Y, and some- 
times also in a negative X, direction. In other words, the distribu- 
tion tends to be linear throughout the great mass of the cases, and 
becomes non-linear where the extreme cases control that are not 
infrequently quite irregular in location. Table I shows that the 
correlation ratios differ from the correlation coefficients by an 
amount sufficiently great in most cases to indicate non-linearity of 
correlation, when the entire table is taken into consideration. 

Having raised these questions as to the reliability of our data, 
we have next to consider what the prima facie results are. 

The correlation coefficients in Table I show relatively slight 
difference between 1910 and 1920. They are great enough, how- 
ever, to warrant us in stating that the results there obtained are not 
necessarily immutable laws of the interrelation of population and 


136 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


these several measures of industry. Analysis of the figures of 
earlier or of future censuses may reveal quite different correlations. 
The correlations as a whole (neglecting their division by censuses ) 
fall roughly into three size classes; “‘Primary horse-power”’ seems 
clearly to be the least correlated with size of cities, and is in a class 
by itself. The correlations of population with “value of manufac- 
tures,” “value added,” and “value of raw materials” are closely 
grouped, ranging from .65 to .68. Two other pairs, “wages paid,” 


TABLE I 
CITIES 10,000 TO 100,000 IN POPULATION, I910 AND 1920 
Pams ov Vanrantzs Sete so We EL es 
I. Population. Value of Manu- 1910 1920 I9to 1920 IgIo 1920 

facturesiw ios), (lo BE. 10820650), :.08-,02 | .08=h.01)) «76-2 .0emens 9 OL 
II. Population. Valueadded . 531 647 .68.02 66.01 .78+.01 .81.01 
TII. Population. Value raw ma- 

terial Pesety ote ae Wed ete ice a DOS 2mlas etareiare CGS 02 ere set 77 OF 
IV. Population. Wagespaid . 529 562 .75t.or .7r.or .77t.or .75+.01 
V. Population. Primary horse- 

power : : a =) §29 562° 46.02 (81-5,02", 63.027 .03-..02 
VI. Population. All workers in 

manufacturing, 2 <3 S25. 652 .73or 272.01 .74 orl 77 or 


and “all workers in manufacturing” form a natural class, ranging 
from .71 to .75. Taking into consideration, however, the qualifica- 
tions of the use of the Pearson coefficient in non-normal distribu- 
tions, it is best to be cautious about drawing conclusions from the 
differences between the values of Y for the last two classes. The 
fact that the whole population of a city includes “all workers in 
manufacturing” may account in part for the correlations of .73 and 
.72; moreover there is probably a high correlation between “all 
workers in manufacturing” and “wages paid.” This suggests the 
advisability of the continuation of this study in the direction of the 
use of multiple and partial correlation coefficients. 

Table II reveals certain data for 1920 not computed for 1910. 


ECONOMIC FACTORS AND SIZE OF CITIES = 137 


The first three pairs of correlation coefficients give us the oppor- 
tunity of contrasting the upper and lower halves of the population 
distribution in the correlation table. In each of these pairs we see 
that the correlation for the smaller cities, which are so much more 
numerous, is definitely lower than that for the entire group of 
those 10,000 to 100,000. The relatively few cities above 50,000 in 
population pull the coefficient up very notably in each case. This is 


TABLE II 
Tue Errect oF RANGE OF SIZES oF CITIES UPON THE SIZE OF THE CORRELATION 
COEFFICIENTS 
Pairs of Variables Range of Population Fie sae: 
2 : I0,000—100,00 65.02 
Population and value of raw material . S10, ioe 5 
1 10,000-50,000 51.02 
Pardiation and wages § 10,000-100,000 71.01 
1 10,000-50,000 52.02 
— aul 
Population and horse-power § 10,000-100,000 ia ete 
1 10,000-50,000 37203 


Population and value of manufactures. . Over 100,000 (excluding 

New York, Chicago, 

Philadelphia, Washington) .go.02 
Population and value of manufactures. . Twenty-five largest 88.03 
Population and value of manufactures... Twenty-five next largest .36-£.12 


due to two facts: they are relatively far from the means of the 
correlates of wages (value of raw material, of wages, amount of 
horse-power); and they lie in general in the positive Y direction 
from the regression line that would be determined by only the data 
for cities under 50,000. 

This general tendency is emphasized when we consider the 
fifty cases (excluding the three largest and Washington) above our 
arbitrarily chosen limit of 100,000 population. Here the correla- 
tion of all is .90; but for the highest group of twenty-five it is .88, 
and for the lower twenty-five is only .36. The extreme lowness of 
this figure as compared with the .68 obtained for all cities 10,000- 


138 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


100,000 is hard to interpret. The small number of cases weakens 
the reliability of both these figures, however. 

It is difficult to draw any final conclusions from the figures of 
this last table. The mathematical limitations on their reliability are 
obvious. But since we are forewarned on this point, it may be fair 
to say that on the face value of the coefficients we are at least justi- 
fied in suggesting the following deduction: 

The correlation between population and the several measures 
of industry seems to increase as the size of the cities increases, and 
that hence the industrial factors are more potent as the size of the 
city increases. 

C. E. GEHLKE 


With Harotp ADAMS and ROMAN POZDERSKI 


WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY 


THE URBAN EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN 2000 A.D. 


If the length of human life continues to increase at the rate in- 
dicated by the experience of the past three centuries the expectation 
of life of babies born in the year 2000 will be over 100 years. 

Reliable life-tables are available for no earlier period than the 
sixteenth century, in Switzerland. Outside of Switzerland the earli- 
est authentic estimates of expectation of life date from the early 
nineteenth century in France and Sweden. As more recent decades 
are reached, life-tables become available for increasing numbers of 
countries. For the United States the expectation of life in Massa- 
chusetts for the year 1855 has been reliably calculated. The gen- 
eral registration area furnishes no such table for any date previous 
to 1901. For dates since 1912 expectations of life for foreign coun- 
tries are not available. 

A compilation of the expectations of life in various countries 
according to periods of time makes it possible to draw certain ten- 
tative conclusions as to the probable future trend of life-expecta- 
tion. Since the data in general are drawn from countries with pre- 
dominantly urban populations, and since the most recent data re- 
late to the United States registration area, which includes the most 
thickly settled section of the country, and data from the industrial- 
policy experience of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 
which includes almost, if not entirely, urban population, it is safer 
to regard the conclusions as applying to urban centers rather than 
to the United States as a whole. 

From a study by Dr. Louis Dublin’ and investigations by the 
writer it appears that the trend of expectations of life has been 

* The Possibility of Extending Human Life. New York: Metropolitan Life In- 
surance Company, 1922. 


139 


140 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


steadily upward since the sixteenth century. The expectation of 
life in Switzerland has risen from 21 years in 1550 to over 50 years 
in 1910. Other countries all show a similar trend. Not only have 
the expectations been increasing, but the increases in expectations 
have also been accelerating. Before 1875 the average gain per dec- 
ade was about .8 years; since 1850 the gain has averaged 3.2 years 
per decade, or a rate of progress four times as great as that in the 
earlier period. 

This radical upward sweep of the curve began just after the 
demonstration of the germ theory of disease in 1865. From 1901 to 
1925 the expectation of life in the original registration states in- 
creased from 49 years to about 58 years, or at a rate of 3.7 years 
per decade. With reference to the lower wage-earning groups in the 
urban population of the United States, the Metropolitan Life In- 
surance Company experience with its 16,000,000 industrial policy- 
holders is significant. Between 1911-12 and 1924-25 the expecta- 
tion of life at the age of ten for such white policyholders has been 
raised from 48.1 years to about 54.3.2 This indicates that the urban 
expectation of life, under the conditions provided for these 16,000,- 
ooo policyholders, was being extended at the rate of 4.8 years per 
decade. 

On the basis of these trends what expectation of life is likely to 
be attained by the year 2000? Four different hypotheses are defen- 
sible. The first is that our civilization is likely to break down be- 
tween now and 2000 A.D., with a resulting disastrous setback in 
life-expectancy such as has apparently occurred in previous dark 
ages. Here is not the place even to summarize the arguments pro 


2This figure is my own estimate, based upon data published by the company. 
The 1921-22 expectation as given by the company was 53.2. The death-rate for 1924 
was the lowest in the history of the company, and for the first six months of 1925 
was as low as for the corresponding period in 1921, which was the previous record. 


URBAN EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN 2000 A.D. 141 


and con relative to this hypothesis; I can only state my own belief 
that this outcome is unlikely. 

A second hypothesis might be that the possibilities of reducing 
the death-rate have been about exhausted; that the control of in- 
fectious diseases, the reduction of infant mortality, and the effects 
of improved standards of living have used up the easier reductions 
in death-rates, and that from now on, while further improvement is 
still possible, nothing as spectacular as past gains can be expected. 
On this hypothesis decreasing gains in life-expectation may be ex- 
pected, with a gradual approach to an upper limit at, say, 65 years. 

A third hypothesis might be that medical science has now found 
its stride, and that further gains in life-span may be expected at 
about present rates. Under this hypothesis if the gain of 3.7 years 
per decade which has been achieved in the original registration 
states of the United States were carried forward until 2000 aD., 
the expectation at that date would be about 87 years. 

The fourth hypothesis would hold that not only the present 
rate of gain in expectation can be maintained, but that the present 
rate of increase in the rate of gain can be carried on, and even that 
the upward sweep of the curve will continue to accelerate. If pres- 
ent increases in the rate of lengthening of the life-span were to con- 
tinue, about .44 years would be added to the gain each decade; in 
2000 A.D. the span would be lengthening at about the rate of 8 years 
per decade, and the expectation of life at birth would have reached 
about 104 years. If the line of gains in life expectancy were to fol- 
low a regular curve along its present tendencies rather than a 
straight line, the expectation of life at the end of the present cen- 
tury would be much over 100 years. Indeed, such a curve forecasts 
emphatically the practical elimination of disease and of old age 
through scientific discoveries in the next few centuries. 

That this fourth hypothesis is the most plausible one is the be- 


142 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


lief of the writer. This belief is based upon facts which can only be 
summarized here: 

1. The tendency for the past million years has been toward 
accelerating increases in man’s power to control his environment. 
This is conclusively shown by the study of the cutting tools used 
by man from the Pliocene age, hundreds of thousands of years ago, 
up to 1925. Ina more definitely measurable way this acceleration 
is obvious in such variables as the speed with which man has been 
able to move, the rapidity with which he has been able to make 
copies of a message, the length of the span over which he could 
erect a bridge, the speed with which new inventions have been dif- 
fused over the world, and the distance at which one man could kill 
another. Curves drawn to represent any one of these accelerating 
developments will suggest the same upward sweep which is evident 
in the line representing gains in expectation of life. 

2. The world has already regained the loss in expectation of 
life resulting from the war. The United States census volume on 
mortality statistics for 1922 gives death-rates for the United States, 
Australia, Austria, Chile, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, 
Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom for a series of years. The 
average of the best years before 1918 in these respective countries 
is 16.2 deaths per 1,000 of population. The average of the respec- 
tive best years since 1918 is 16.3 deaths per 1,000. This is the case 
although data for 1921 and 1922, which were the healthiest years 
for other countries, were not yet available for Germany and Spain. 

3. Although most of the gains of life-expectancy before 1910 
were due to prevention of deaths in the earlier age periods, since 
that time the expectation of life for older men and women has 
ceased falling and started to increase. Medical science is beginning 
to cope successfully with the diseases of later life. 

4. Instead of showing signs of having used up the major possi- 
bilities in preventive medicine, research in this field is making new 


URBAN EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN 2000 A.D. 143 


major discoveries which bid fair to eclipse past attainments in life- 
saving. The discoveries relating to internal secretions and to the 
functions of vitamins are just beginning to be exploited. An anti- 
septic many times as powerful as any in past use has very recently 
been discovered. Important progress is being made in relation to 
cancer and diseases of the heart and blood vessels—two of the most 
serious causes of death in later life. The potential immortality of 
the cells of the body has been demonstrated. Not only are such dis- 
coveries being announced with increasing frequency, but new re- 
search laboratories are constantly being opened, new apparatus and 
new technique are being discovered and brought into use, an in- 
creasing number of trained investigators is available, and unprece- 
dented funds are being placed at the service of scientists in this 
field. 

In planning for the future of society sociology must take into 
account the unquestionable fact of accelerating material progress 
and, in particular, must recognize the probability of the continua- 
tion of such progress in the extension of human life. We may pre- 
dict with more certainty than that with which Jules Verne predicted 
the submarine, or Bacon the automobile and airplane, that in the 
y2ar 2000 A.D., unless we wreck our civilization before that date, 
many a baby will be born with two hundred years or more of life 
before it; and that men and women one hundred years of age will 
be quite the normal thing, but instead of being wrinkled and crip- 
pled they will still be in their vigorous prime. 


HoRNELL HART 
Bryn Mawr COLLEGE 


THE STATISTICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN 
POPULATION AND THE CITY PLAN 


Population problems as they are related to regional and to city 
planning naturally group themselves into three general classes, re- 
lating respectively to population distribution, population growth, 
population economics. 


A. POPULATION DISTRIBUTION 


If the incorporated communities in the Continental United 
States are arranged in groups the limits of which start with 2,500 
and are doubled with each step (2,500 to 5,000, 5,000 to 10,000, 
10,000 to 20,000, etc.), it will be found that the numbers in each 
group are related in precisely the same way as are those given by 
the mathematics of probabilities for sequences of different dimen- 
sions in the tossing of a coin or the drawing of white balls from a 
bag which contains large but equal numbers of black and white 
ones. This is shown in Table I, but is especially evident when the 
quantities are plotted logarithmically. 

That this relationship is not peculiar to the 1920 census dis- 
tribution is seen from the figures for the two smallest groups and 
for the totals for the three preceding decades compared with the 
mathematical frequencies (see Table II). 

On the basis of this relationship it is possible to develop a for- 
mula which will give the distribution and size of the communities in 
any group. In this manner the size of the community which com- 
prises the single member of the largest group can be computed. In 
logarithmic form the formula is 


log P=log N +- log a— % log 2 
144 


RELATIONSHIP OF POPULATION AND CITY PLAN 145 


TABLE I 


Numbers oF COMMUNITIES OF GROUPED Si1zES COMPARED WITH CHANCES OF 
DRAWING SEQUENCES OF DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS 


PoPuULATION GROUPS ae piee. Sienlor CHANCES OF SECURING 

Lower Limit Upper Limit PLACES IN SEQUENCE Ae ea iss obs 
THE GROUP 9797 
2,500 mm A 5,000 1,320 I 1,393 
5,000 * 5 10,000 721 2 607 
I0,000.)hClti«s . 20,000 388 2 348 
20,000 . 3 40,000 174 4 I74 
40,000. 5 80,000 98 5 87 
80,000 ZA . 160,000 45 6 44 
160,000 3 - 320,000 22 7 22 
320,000 . A 640,000 II 8 II 
640,000 . : 1,280,000 5 9 5 
1,280,000 2,560,000 2 10 3 
2,560,000 ns 5,120,000 fe) II I 
‘S130; 000 mame ; 10,240,000 I I2 fo) 
Total Satetetc eres 2,787 Pic sae 

TABLE II 


NumMBERS OF COMMUNITIES oF Two Lowest-Sizze Groups FoR Four DECADES 
COMPARED WITH CHANCES OF DRAWING SEQUENCES 
OF CORRESPONDING DIMENSIONS 


NUMBER OF COMMUNITIES 
Totat NUMBER OF 


Census DATE COMMUNITIES OF 2,500 Between Between Total 
AND OVER 2,500 and 5,000 and Between 2,500 
5,000 10,000 and 10,000 
nieyyey ; 2,787 I,320 721 2,041 
LOLOMN aE & 2.303 T,106 621 727 
Ig00 Cli, ‘ 1,801 893 468 1,361 
I890._lz. 1,429 726 339 1,065 


NUMBER OF SEQUENCES IN 


Crnsus DATE Tora THRows ie plete squares OF OF Sica 
eI e I AND 2 
O20 Me. 5 2,787 1,393 696 2,089 
TOLOmE. : 2ars 1,156 578 1,734 
I900 F 1,801 goo 450 1,350 
1890S lit. & 1,429 714 357 1,071 


146 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


in which P is the population of the largest city, NV is the total num- 
ber of all communities larger than a, which is the minimum size of 
community considered (in this case it is 2,500). 
Table III gives the result of computations for four decades. 
The distribution of population among communities of different 
sizes having been examined in its relation to mathematical proba- 
bility, it is interesting to turn to the distribution within any given 
aggregation. Population density corresponds to the mathematical 
frequency of distribution of shots on a target, for example. A curve 
which shows the average population density with increasing dis- 
TABLE III 
THEORETICAL S1zE oF Larcest Ciry CoMpaRED wiTH Its ACTUAL POPULATION 


POPULATION 
DATE DIFFERENCE (PERCENTAGE) 
Theoretical Actual 
TOZOWMa - F 4,927,000 5,620,048 II.4 
TOLOW : : 4,089,000 4,766,883 I1.6 
TOOO Tei. ‘ : 3,184,000 3,437,202 10.8 
TS90", 17 : ‘ 2,526,000 2,507,414 I.0 


tance from the center of greatest activity should therefore have 
some relationship to a normal frequency curve. An effort was made 
to fit such a frequency curve to several density curves, with aston- 
ishingly satisfactory results. Only immaterial differences were dis- 
closed in the fit of the curves for Brooklyn, for 1910, for 1 to 5% 
miles from the center; Detroit, for 1910, for 1 to 44% miles; To- 
ronto, for 1914, for 1 to 4% miles; Toronto, for 1899, for 1 to 3 
miles; Ottawa, for 1911, for 34 to 12 miles. 

The limits are, respectively, the point of maximum density 
(which varied from fifty to one hundred persons per acre) anda 
point where the average density was below ten per acre. 


B. POPULATION GROWTH 


If the number of communities over 2,500 is assumed for future 
dates, then the formula for the maximum aggregation can be used 


RELATIONSHIP OF POPULATION AND CITY PLAN 147 


to estimate future populations. It is found that a practically uni- 
form rate of increase accrued during four decades in the number 
of incorporated places which exceeded 2,500 in population. The 
past forty-year average rate was computed and projected uniform- 
ly into the future. The population of the largest aggregation was 
computed from the formula already given, and by the application 
of a ratio determined from past experience the future population of 
the New York region was estimated. It is given in Table IV, which 
also includes estimates derived by a system of ratios applied to 
TABLE IV 


EsTIMATED PopuULATION OF THE NEw YorK REGION 
POPULATION BY METHOD OF 


DATE Probabilities Applied Ratios to Total 
to Total Number of United States 
Communities over 2,500 Population 
1930 A m é A : 9,700,000 9,670,000 
TOAC Mure . é , ‘ II,000,000 11,000,000 
ZQSO)) z 5 ‘ 12,400,000 12,300,000 
1960 . 4 ; H 3 I3,600,000 13,820,000 
TOJOu mr , : . y 15,100,000 15,430,000 
1980. 7 . ; , 16,400,000 16,850,000 
1990 , ~ : 5 : 17,900,000 18,460,000 
2000... 4 - : A 19,200,000 19,780,000 


what is believed to be the maximum probable future population of 
the United States. 

The methodology underlying the application of ratios is as fol: 
lows: 


1. The future probable maximum population of the United States was 
estimated on the basis of United States Department of Agriculture data as to 
food production (300,000,000). 

2. The future population of the country was estimated for each future 
census date on the basis of such a uniformly decreasing rate of increase as 
would produce the assumed ultimate total. 

3. The past ratio to the population of the whole country was determined 
of the total population of all communities, each of which possessed at each 
census date over 1 per cent of the population of the country. 


148 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


4. This curve of ratios was projected into the future (an asymptote being 
clearly indicated). 

5. The probable future ratios were applied to the estimated population of 
the country to find the population of the “over 1 per cent” group. 

6. The past ratios of the population of the New York region to the “over 
I per cent” group and this curve of ratios was projected into the future (it had 
become a constant about 1870). 

7. The future ratios were applied to the total for the “over 1 per cent” 
group to find the future probable population of the New York region. (The 
results are shown in Table IV.) 


This method is applicable to any community, but it must be 
understood that the possible percentage variations above or below 
the estimated results may be expected to increase as the size of the 
community decreases. 


C. POPULATION ECONOMICS 


Many factors of everyday life have been found to bear a rela- 
tionship to the populations of communities. The street car “riding 
habit,” the number of persons to each automobile, the number of 
business establishments required to serve each 1,000 population, 
the number of industrial wage-earners, the area of industrial land 
per worker, are factors which largely depend upon economic factors 
applied to population numbers. 

For example, the riding habit on trolleys in cities throughout 
the country about 1920 averaged in accordance with the formula: 


Riding habit = 7.36 times (population exponent 0.31) 


Another example as to the relationship which has existed be- 
tween automobile registration in the whole United States and the 
population is given by the formula: 


Total registration = total population divided by (4.25 plus e 
exponent 1.45-times-the-date-in-question-subtracted-from-1926) 


RELATIONSHIP OF POPULATION THE CITY PLAN 149 


This formula indicates that the saturation point of automobile reg- 
istration is to be when there is one car for each 4.25 persons. 

Since 1850 the number of industrial wage-earners in its rela- 
tion to total population has been closely approximated by the for- 
mula: 

Wage-earners = population divided by [the sum 
of 0.133 plus (0.134 divided by e with an exponent 
0.0444-times-the-date-in-question-minus-1840 ) | 


This formula indicates that the percentage of industrial wage-earn- 
ers will eventually become equal to one divided by 13.3, or 7.5 per 
cent. 

A complicated formula was reported to the late International 
Garden City and Town Planning Conference which relates the eco- 
nomic average residence-building height to the population of the 
community. 


APPLICATIONS TO CITY PLANNING 


These formulas are simply examples of many mathematical re- 
lationships which have been disclosed by study. How such data 
can be employed is illustrated in the few succeeding paragraphs. 

If the future size of any community is estimated and the prob- 
able distribution of its population within the community is as- 
sumed, from such statistical studies as those described above, then 
it is not difficult to draft a zoning ordinance as far as it relates to 
building height or bulk—assuming uniform topography. 

With population density and distribution known, the “average 
length of haul” on transit lines can be computed, and with the rid- 
ing habit known from such a formula as that quoted above the ca- 
pacity of a proper transit system can be determined. 

Formulas for the future number of industrial wage-earners in 
any region can be derived and, when combined with data as to land 


150 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


and building area required per worker, will give the areas which 
must be set aside for industry when zoning a district. 

With zone boundaries and conditions established scientifically 
it is not difficult to devise a street and a transit system capable of 
handling the expected traffic without congestion. Conversely, when 
the problem involves the fixation of building bulk and height limits, 
the population which can be accommodated is fixed and zoning 
conditions can be adjusted to fit an existing street system. 

Such data and application to actual conditions, if carried suffi- 
ciently far, will create a science of city planning which should move 
hand in hand with the art, and the psychological, sociological, and 
political aspects can and should be similarly analyzed and made to 
contribute their quota toward a complete solution of the great 
modern human problem. 

ERNEST P. GOODRICH 


CONSULTANT TO REGIONAL PLAN 
or New YorEK 


THE RATE OF GROWTH OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF 
CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES 


The three classes of cities comprised in this study are those of 
25,000, 100,000, and 500,000 population. The latter class is not 
represented in the table (Table I) or curves (Fig. 1), since there 
were too few of such cities for classification. 

So far as I know the rate of growth of these classes of cities 
has not been established and published. The census of 1920 shows 
that the distribution of our national population by classes of cities 
and rural districts differs somewhat from that of 1910. But this 
gives no clue to the rapidity of gain of the various classes, since 
each class is treated as a whole, irrespective of the number of cities 
in each class, and since, further, the country is included. 

There is a certain practical importance attached to knowing 
the rate of growth of different classes of cities. As an illustration of 
this I may refer to my own needs at the present time. I have been 
asked to discuss the probable future of the population and industry 
of my own state. This involves a knowledge of the increase of the 
urban population, among other things. It also involves making an 
estimate of the growth of particular cities. Any justification for 
hazarding a guess concerning the future population in general or 
particular must rest on well-attested rates of growth in the past. 

It is conceived that such a line of study might also be of some 
consequence in the field of city planning for coming cities. In plan- 
ning for relatively small cities it is always a question as to how 
extensive the plans should be, whether partial or complete, and in 
any case what their nature should be. To be able to estimate the 
probable future growth of the city in question might be of consid- 


151 


152 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


erable assistance in deciding on the kind and extent of plan it were 
advisable to advocate. 

In the present study I have worked out the rate of increase of 
each of three classes of cities for the entire period covered and for 
each decade and for all the cities of all classes for all decades, ex- 
cept that the rate of increase is given in the census of 1920 for all 
cities having a population of 25,000 or more in 1920 for the last 


TABLE I 


AvERAGE RATES OF INCREASE OF CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES BELONGING TO THE 
25,000 AND 100,000 PopULATION CLASS 
BY DECADES 1850 TO 1920 


25,000 CLASS 100,000 CLASS 
DercaDE ENDING Average Limited Average Average Limited Average 

No. Rate No. Rate No. Rate No. Rate 

1860 : A - i 9 73.4 4 33.9 7 108.6 4 28.1 
1870 : Z - : I5 20.47 eit 33.2 8 67.5 5 36.5 
1880 : . : ad. 27.OMn tS B33 aeLO A OnE S 44.7 
1890 F - > Bhat tgp AStAges 7, 2510 eee I 46.5 16 42.0 
Ig00 : ; 3 mites t 27.07 an AO hoe © eX} 20:5). 330 33.6 
IQIoO : ; mn SOT 80.4755 56 22 Ouse 4I.7 44 22.2 
1920 : ; : se ye 33.2) 055 22 ens 7 28.6 O61 29.3 
TLotale erates denore 7. 40.3 213 23.7 5/250 520 L75 Sib: 
Wediatietcus sj ih orton ses 23:4 A is etl! Sine, 30.0 bsists ads 


‘two decades. The accompanying table (Table I) presents some of 
the results. It gives the simple average and also the limited average 
for the 25,000 and the 100,000 classes for each decade and for the 
whole period. It also gives the median for each class for the entire 
period. The class limits of the different classes were: for the 25,000 
class, 20,000 to 24,999; for the 100,000 class, 50,000 to 149,499; 
for the 500,000 class, not represented in the table, they were 400,- 
000 to 599,999. The limits had to be widened in the case of the 
larger cities in order to supply enough cities for representative 
purposes. 

The decennial simple average rates of increase for the 25,000 


153 


GROWTH OF CERTAIN CLASSES OF CITIES 


O¢/ 


BSOI4IUJ JUD 4a 
OV 0? 0 


(%) $2y9 


154 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


class range from 30 to 73; those of the 100,000 class, from 28.6 to 
108.6. The decennial limited average rates were secured by taking 
the average of all rates of increase from 10 to 74. These range from 
32.1 to 35.8 for the 25,000 class of cities, and from 28.1 to 44.7 for 
the 100,000 class. For the 25,000 class the average of all decades 
from 1850 to 1920 is 40.3, the limited average is 33.7, and the me- 
dian is 28.4. For the 100,000 class the average is 52.9, the limited 
average is 35.2, and the median is 30.0. For the 500,000 class of 
cities the average is 36.5, the weighted average is 36.1, the limited 
average is 27.4, and the median is 26.7. It will be a matter of pur- 
pose and judgment as to which of these averages should be used, or 
whether, in the case of an exceptional city, some more direct 
method of establishing its probable future growth will not be re- 
sorted to. 

Because of the large number of cities in each of the two classes 
of cities, 25,000 and 100,000, it was possible to construct tables of 
percentages based on class ranges of ro. The classes ranged from 
—20 to —30 to over 200. But there were so few above 130 as to 
render it not worth while to try to extend the curves beyond that 
point. 

Perhaps the curves (Fig. 1) require a word of explanation. C, 
represents the 25,000 class of cities; C., the 100,000 class; and V 
the normal curve when put on a geometric basis. The logarithmic 
normal curve has recently been established by my colleague, Pro- 
fessor G. R. Davies, and an account of it will soon appear in the 
Journal of Statistics. It is seen that C, corresponds very closely to 
the normal curve, and that C. does so for the most part, though to 
a less extent. 


J. M. GILLETTE 
UNIVERSITY OF NoRTH DAKOTA 


POPULATION MOBILITY AND COMMUNITY 
ORGANIZATION 


SOURCES AND METHOD 


This paper is written from a portion of the material gathered 
in a three-year study by the Community Committee of community 
organization in New York City. The compilation of population 
figures has been made by Miss Mary Johnston from the census fig- 
ures of 1920. Six communities in the Borough of Manhattan were 
selected because they possess well-established community organi- 
zations and present clearly some of the effects on the community 
of a changing, particularly a decreasing, population. Those com- 
munities are: (1) Bowling Green, at the southern tip of lower Man- 
hattan, west of Broadway, with 10,654 inhabitants; (2) Greenwich, 
extending along the Hudson from Canal Street to Fourteenth 
Street, with 101,592 people; (3) Clinton, west of Fifth Avenue 
from Fortieth to Fifty-ninth streets, of 99,170 population; and on 
the eastern strip of the island (4) the Lower East Side, from the 
Battery nearly to Houston Street, numbering 340,949 persons, Gis) 
Kips Bay, east of Fifth Avenue from Twenty-eighth to Fifty-ninth 
Street, with 105,744 people, and (6) Yorkville, east of Fifth Ave- 
nue from Fifty-ninth to Ninety-sixth Street, having a population 
of 285,773. Organizers of projects affecting each of these commu- 
nities as a whole, at the head of non-sectarian and non-political 
organizations, each of whom has been active for more than ten 
years in his district, as well as social workers and school officers, 
have been the source of opinions in this paper concerning results in 
community organization due to population changes. Access has 
been had to other studies, notably a careful one made by the Jewish 
Welfare Board, of changes on the Lower East Side. 


155 


156 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


POPULATION MOBILITY IN THE SIX DISTRICTS 


1. Bowling Green, on the Lower West Side, decreased in popu- 
lation, from 1910 to 1920, 24 per cent. Most of this has been a de- 
crease in the foreign white population from 53.2 per cent to 46.2 
per cent. Native whites of native parentage increased from 10.6 
per cent to 11.2 per cent of the district’s total. In the sanitary dis- 
tricts in the lowest or southernmost section of the district the Irish, 
Turks, Italians, and Germans decreased 1,259, and the Austrians 
and Greeks increased 548. For Bowling Green, Irish, Germans, 
and the Turks are the older population, moving north and out of 
the district, while the Austrian, Greek, and Roumanian newcomers 
take their places. 

2. Greenwich, just to the north, decreased less, or 17 per cent 
in population, native whites of native parentage increasing in pro- 
portion and the foreign whites decreasing 26 per cent. The Turks 
and Russians, decreasing in Bowling Green, are increasing in 
Greenwich, and the Greeks are increasing. Irish and Germans are 
leaving all parts of the district. Italians left the Italian colonies 
uniformly but decreased and increased unevenly in other sanitary 
districts. Again only three nationalities showed increases in num- 
bers. 

3. In Clinton, still to the north, the population decrease is still 
smaller (6 per cent), and the number of nationalities increasing is 
g. There was an increase both in the number and proportion of the 
native whites of native parentage. The Irish and Germans left in 
large numbers and the Italians came into the district. The Irish 
and German decrease in percentages was greater in the tier farthest 
from the river, where business pushed hardest and the Italians 
came in fewest numbers. From the middle or residential tier Irish 
and Americans left in smallest percentages and Italians came in 
largest. Here business shoved people out and newer immigration 
displaced the old. 


POPULATION AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 157 


4. In the Lower East Side (again starting at the southernmost 
tip of Manhattan), there is a decrease of 25.3 per cent in total 
population and an increase not only in the proportion but also in 
the actual number of native whites with one or both parents for- 
eign, showing the effect of dropping-off of immigration. Decreases 
included 46 per cent among the Russians, 36 per cent among the 
Austrians (pre-war groupings), 20 per cent among the Italians, 46 
per cent among the Irish, and 61 per cent among the Germans. 
There were increases in only three nationalities: Greeks, Turks, 
and Canadians. 

5. Kips Bay, on the middle east side, decreased in population 
only 4.8 per cent and showed an increase in proportion and number 
of native whites of native parentage, a decrease in the proportion 
and number of foreign-born whites. The greatest decrease was 
among the Irish (21 per cent) in the district from First to Third 
avenues and from Twenty-ninth to Forty-ninth Street. Into this 
district came the Greeks in largest numbers and also Italians. The 
Germans left from all parts of Kips Bay. There were seven nation- 
alities that increased in numbers. 

6. Still north of Kips Bay, Yorkville decreased only 1.5 per 
cent, and thirteen nationalities increased in numbers. Again native 
whites of native parentage increased in number and proportion. 
The Germans left from all sections of the district. The Irish de- 
creased 4 per cent but they moved around in the district to their 
own advantage, leaving the less desirable territory east of Third 
Avenue. The Italians are coming in from the river to Third Avenue. 


GENERAL TRENDS 


The movement is universally northward and the native whites 
are increasing in proportion and, in the northernmost communities 
studied, in actual numbers, despite a population decrease. The 
Germans and Irish are leaving all these communities, but the Irish 


158 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


shift themselves into advantageous parts, while the Germans march 
out more evenly from all districts. The newer immigration, espe- 
cially Italian, Austrian, Greek, and Russian, step into the sanitary 
districts vacated by the old. The lower part of Manhattan is a re- 
ceiving station for immigration, and comparatively few nationali- 
ties come at a time (three in Bowling Green and Lower East Side), 
but as we move north there are more nationalities increasing in 
number. 
EFFECTS ON COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 

Universally organizers maintain that the successful of all na- 
tionalities are moving out of the neighborhoods. Usually it is the 
young folks who have made some money, can pay on a house, and 
who, with the help of the other money-earning children, can take 
the old folks and keep up the payments. They move for one main 
cause—to get better housing and to live in better neighborhoods. 
Practically no stimulation for the movement of an organized or 
deliberative kind can be found. The movement is toward Queens 
from every district, less to the Bronx, and still less to Brooklyn 
and Jersey. 

It is a real movement, a general exodus, and has taken on large 
proportions in the last three years. Families that have been rooted 
for thirty years are moving from every one of these districts. The 
organizers report that the flow is toward the building operations. 
These people are coming back to clubs, churches, and social groups 
in their old neighborhoods, but they come less often than when they 
lived in the district. Henry Street Settlement has found it neces- 
sary to change the character of its club work in consequence. Hart- 
ley House, in Clinton, is changing deliberately the character of its 
work from service in clubs to boys and girls to one of providing 
facilities for new nationality groups. 

In all districts but Bowling Green schools are losing in attend- 
ance and therefore in number of teachers. The good teachers see 


; 


| 


POPULATION AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 159 


the handwriting on the wall and can get jobs most quickly, and the 
principals complain of the loss of the efficiency and morale built 
up in the teaching staff over a period of years. The spirit and 
methods of a school adjust to one nationality only by the time an- 
other comes along and necessitates further change. 

Churches are “digging in,’ and even where their clientéle 
moves they are usually succeeding in organization plans. One Ger- 
man church lost many members, other members moved, until a 
small congregation scattered over the Greater City owned the 
property. It was sold at twenty times the original cost, and the 
small, scattered, but financially well-knit congregation moved four 
blocks to a new site which a real estate man says will be worth 
three times its cost in six months. Primary controls are often lost. 

Business—button, jewelry, and other small factories—is shov- 
ing people out of the Lower East Side, less than the desire to better 
living conditions, but quite surely. Theatrical business is rapidly 
crowding Clinton. A police captain estimated his precinct at 100,- 
000 residents and 1,000,000 floating population, largely theatrical 
people. The civic and social organizers say the actors won’t help in 
anything local with time, money, or talent. In local affairs the resi- 
dents are losing the old confidence based on support of neighbors. 
Garages are making increases in the four upper communities. The 
neighbors call them dangerous and undesirable. Apartments and 
apartment hotels are supplanting two-family houses in Kips Bay 
and are bringing some people of better means to the neighborhood, 
but schools, churches, and civic workers maintain they give no ap- 
preciable help since they have interests outside their new neigh- 
borhood. 

Population is changing in New York City as rapidly today as 
ever before, and in a more complex manner. The Lower East Side, 
once the congested section, is now one of the few districts where 


160 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


there is no part time in the schools. One school, ten years ago 99 
per cent Jewish, is now gg per cent Italian. 

With the insistence on housing the factor of deliberate com- 
munity planning is apparently increasingly important. Interest- 
ingly, no evidence whatever was revealed of racial superiorities in 
the matter of standards of living. Each organizer insists every na- 
tionality moves out and on to better housing and better neighbor- 
hoods as soon as there is any economic possibility. 


LE Roy E. BowMAan 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


MALADJUSTMENT OF YOUTH IN RELATION TO 
DENSITY OF POPULATION 


Attention is repeatedly called to the apparent increase in the 
social maladjustment of young people. Whether there is any actual 
increase, or whether our changing attitude, along with more accu- 
rate and detailed methods of recording conflicts, brings youthful 
violations of the social codes to our attention, we cannot say. What- 
ever may be the case, the expenditure of energy by any consider- 
able part of the population in ways which are harmful to the group 
is social waste and should be reduced to a minimum. 

This report is based largely upon data which we are gathering 
in making a study of factors contributing to juvenile delinquency 
in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, an urban community of about 
900,000 population. In any study of this kind much of the work is 
of necessity an eliminating process, and it is in regard to one such 
point that this report is made. A statement that is taken to be 
almost axiomatic by many writers is that density of population is a 
cause of crime, or at least associated with the presence of crime, and 
the less the person knows about it, the more definitely density of 
population is spoken of as a cause of crime. We are compelled to 
agree with Professor Chaddock that statistics should serve as a 
guide in making our generalizations in sociology, rather than un- 
proved assertions, even though these may come from persons of 
authority in some particular field of inquiry. The Twin City study 
has led to some conclusions with regard to the relation between 
density of population and juvenile delinquency. 

In spite of sweeping statements often made that “Society is 
being disorganized and juvenile delinquency is becoming rampant,” 
the maladjustment of youth is not as general as some conclude. 

161 


162 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


1. It is rather definitely localized within circumscribed areas 
which Burgess called “the zone of transition.” 

2. Within these “maladjusted” areas there is not necessarily 
any density of dwellers. In fact the density of population is rela- 
tively lower than in other areas where there is little, or practically 
no, delinquency. 

3. There is no undue density of particular age groups. 

4. There is not any high correlation with overcrowding in 
homes. 

5. These areas do have many persons “passing through,” who 
come there because of the business or light industry adjacent. 

6. There is a high percentage of mobile population, such as 
temporary boarders and roomers, unsettled families, persons mov- 
ing up the social scale, and persons moving down the social scale, 
all of whom come into secondary contact with the young people of 
the area, but do not form a united attitude or have any definite 
group mores regarding the details of life of the young people in 
the neighborhood. 

Social mores are determined by the group. Social control is de- 
pendent upon the mores. Where there are no group affiliations, no 
group attachments, no group control, there occurs increased social 
maladjustment and delinquency as compared with the rest of the 
community. 

I will now briefly summarize the results of our study as they 
are related to the above six conclusions. 

1, The juvenile delinquency area corresponds to the “zones of 
transition” in Minneapolis and St. Paul. We also find an almost 
entire absence of agencies working with boys and girls. 

2. A common error in comparing density of population is to 
take the density of an entire ward, or political subdivision, rather 
than the density of the specific area of delinquency or other factor 
being studied. Thus undue weight is given to parks or other local 
factors. We have taken definite small areas for comparison, with 


MALADJUSTED YOUTH AND DENSE POPULATION 163 


the following results (Locations I and II each represent two areas 
equal in size and practically adjoining each other. We find less de- 
linquencies in the more dense areas): 
I. Area A—population, 3,200 

Juvenile delinquents, 1.09 per hundred of population 

Area B—population, 6,800 

Juvenile delinquents, 0.01 per hundred of population 
II. Area A—population, 24,000 

Juvenile delinquents, .50 per hundred of population 

Area B—population, 30,000 

Juvenile delinquents, .o2 per hundred of population 


In every case, only two of which we have cited here, the above situ- 
ation held true. 

3. According to the school census maps, there is no density of 
age groups which would be classified as juvenile. 

4. Low coefficient of association found with overcrowding. An 
intensive study was made of all juvenile court cases in one of the 
areas and it was found that there was no more overcrowding in the 
homes from which delinquents came than in other homes in the 
community. The coefficient of association was negligible.’ 

5. Transitional zones. Some of the worst cases of social mal- 
adjustment and delinquency may be found in isolated rural com- 
munities. It is not density of population which is of great signifi- 
cance in juvenile delinquency, since we find that there is no sig- 
nificant coefficient of association between them, but rather the 
“transitional zone” area, where the details of the individual’s life 
do not definitely fit into the established group organizations and 
activities ; where the details of the individual’s life are lost in the 
group activities, the nature of which is unknown to other members 
of his primary group. 

*The maps, charts, and data upon which this is based, along with further re- 
sults of this investigation, are being published in bulletin form. 


M. C.*ELMER 


UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 


IV 
ECOLOGY OF THE CITY 


oe eS 
Wh ) 


yaa 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 


In the struggle for existence in human groups social organiza- 
tion accommodates itself to the spatial and sustenance relation- 
ships existing among the occupants of any geographical area. All 
the more fixed aspects of human habitation, the buildings, roads, 
and centers of association, tend to become spatially distributed in 
accordance with forces operating in a particular area at a particu- 
lar level of culture. In society physical structure and cultural char- 
acteristics are parts of one complex. 

The spatial and sustenance relations in which human beings 
are organized are ever in process of change in response to the oper- 
ation of a complex of environmental and cultural forces. It is the 
task of the human ecologist to study these processes of change in 
order to ascertain their principles of operation and the nature of 
the forces producing them. 

It is perhaps necessary at the outset to indicate the relation of 
human ecology to the kindred sciences of geography and econom- 
ics. It has been claimed that geography is human ecology.’ There 
are doubtless many points in common between the two disciplines; 
but geography is concerned with place; ecology, with process. Lo- 
cation, as a geographical concept, signifies position on the earth’s 
surface; location as an ecological concept signifies position in a 
spatial grouping of interacting human beings or of interrelated hu- 
man institutions. 

Research in economics and commercial geography on land 
value,’ marketing, transportation, commerce, factory and business 

+H. H. Barrows, “Geography as Human Ecology,” Annals of the Association of 
American Geographers, XIII (March 1923), 1-14. 

? Note such studies as R. M. Hurd, Principles of City Land Values (1905); C. C. 
Evers, Commercial Problems in Buildings (1914); E. M. Fisher, The Principles of 


167 


168 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


location frequently has ecological significance. The difference be- 
tween economics and ecology lies mainly in the direction of atten- 
tion. Business economics, the division of economics having most 
ecological significance, is usually approached from the point of 
view of the business man who may want to know the best place to 
locate a factory or the best method of marketing a commodity. 
The ecologist studies the same economic problems, but in relation 
to the processes of human distribution. The chain-store system of 
marketing goods, for instance, might be studied by the economist 
as a system of retail marketing, whereas the ecologist might study 
it as an index of the process of decentralization.* 

Ecological distribution—By this term is meant the spatial dis- 
tribution of human beings and human activities resulting from the 
interplay of forces which effect a more or less conscious, or at any 
rate dynamic and vital, relationship among the units comprising 
the aggregation. An ecological distribution should be distinguished 


from a fortuitous or accidental distribution, where spatial relation- » 


ships are, or seem to be, largely a matter of chance rather than the 
resultant of competing forces. For example, the aggregation of 
people waiting for the door of a theater to open represents a fortui- 
tous spatial distribution; but their distribution in the theater, ac- 
cording to the kind of tickets they present, is a temporary ecologi- 
cal distribution. Although less complex and exacting, this distribu- 
tion is quite similar to that which takes place in the community at 
large under conditions of free competition and choice. 

The spatial distribution of economic utilities, shops, factories, 
offices, is the product of the operation of ecological forces quite as 


Real-Estate Practice (1923); Ely and Morehouse, Elements of Land Economics 
(1924); F.S. Babcock, The Appraisal of Real Estate (1924). 

* Such a study is being made by E. H. Shideler, “The Retail Business Organiza- 
tion as an Index of Community Organization” (in manuscript). 


: 


{ 
: 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 169 


much as is the distribution of residence. The business man who 
attempts to locate his factory or place of business with scientific 
exactness seeks the position of maximum advantage: that is, he 
seeks a point of equilibrium among competing forces. For this rea- 
son the value of location is always relative, and changes as one or 
more of the co-operating forces gain or lose in relative significance. 
A community, then, is an ecological distribution of people and 
services in which the spatial location of each unit is determined by 
its relation to all other units. A network of interrelated commu- 
nities is likewise an ecological distribution. In fact, civilization, 
with its vast galaxy of communities, each of which is more or less 
dependent upon some or all of the others, may be thought of as an 
ecological distribution or organization.* 

Ecological unit —Any ecological distribution—whether of resi- 
dences, shops, offices, or industrial plants—which has a unitary 
character sufficient to differentiate it from surrounding distribu- 
tions may be defined as an ecological unit. On the other hand, an 
interdependent grouping of ecological units around a common cen- 
ter may be called an “ecological constellation.” The metropolitan 
area, with its various districts of residence, business, and industry 
integrated about a common center usually called the city is an eco- 
logical constellation. Such groupings may vary in degree of ecologi- 
cal interdependence from the connurbations which are found in 
each of the strategic areas of commerce and industry to the larger 
national or international communal federations linked financially 
and industrially with a metropolitan center such as London or 
New York. 

Mobility and fluidity —An ecological organization is in proc- 
ess of constant change, the rate depending upon the dynamics of 
cultural, and particularly technical, advance. Mobility is a meas- 


* Ecological distribution, as here used, is synonymous with ecological organi- 
zation. 


170 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


ure of this rate of change; it is represented in change of residence, 
change of employment, or change of location of any utility or serv- 
ice. Mobility must be distinguished from fluidity, which represents 
movement without change of ecological position. Modern means of 
transportation and communication have greatly increased the flu- 
idity of both people and commodities. Increased fluidity, however, 
does not necessarily imply increased mobility. In fact, it frequent- 
ly produces the opposite effect by making residence relatively inde- 
pendent of the place of work; also by extending the territorial zone 
in which the individual may seek the satisfaction of his wishes. 

Fluidity tends to vary inversely with mobility. Slums are the 
most mobile but least fluid sections of a city. Their inhabitants 
come and go in continuous succession, but, while domiciled within 
a given area, have a smaller range of movement than the residents 
of any of the higher economic districts. The unequal fluidity of 
different districts of the city and of different individuals within the 
same district is an important factor in the processes of segregation 
and centralization. Youth tends to be more fluid than old age or 
childhood, giving rise to characteristically different centers of in- 
terest and varying regions of experience for each age group. 

Distance.—Ecological distance is a measure of fluidity. It is a 
time-cost concept rather than a unit of space. It is measured by 
minutes and cents rather than by yards and miles. By time-cost 
measurement the distance from A to B may be farther than from 
B to A, provided B is upgrade from A. 

Communal growth and structure are largely functions of eco- 
logical distance as a time-cost concept.® This basis of distance de- 
termines the currents of travel and traffic, which in turn determine 
the areas of concentration and the locations of cities. Likewise, 
communal structure is a response to distance in the local move- 
ments of commodities and people. The uneven expansion of cities 


° See Plans of New York and Environs, maps and diagrams, p. 27. 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY EVE 


along the routes of rapid and cheap transportation is but an obvi- 
ous result of the time-cost measurement of distance. American 
cities, unlike European cities, are seldom circular in shape, owing 
to the fact that they have usually grown up without systematic 
planning, and therefore their intramural transportation is fre- 
quently less uniformly developed than is the case in most European 
cities. American cities—and this is particularly true since the ad- 
vent of the automobile—tend to spread out in starlike fashion 
along the lines of rapid communication. The maximum linear dis- 
tance from the periphery to the center of the city is seldom over an 
hour’s travel by the prevailing form of transportation. 

Ecological factors —The changing spatial relations of human 
beings are the result of the interplay of a number of different 
forces, some of which have general significance throughout the en- 
tire cultural area in which they operate; others have limited refer- 
ence, applying merely to a specific region or location. For instance, 
the shaft elevator, introduced in the seventies, and steel construc- 
tion, introduced in the nineties, and the more recent advent of the 
automobile have acted as general factors in affecting the concen- 
tration of population and organization of communities. On the 
other hand, geographic factors, such as rivers, hills, lakes, and 
swamps, may have either general or limited significance with re- 
gard to ecological distribution, depending upon the peculiarities of 
local conditions. Certain factors, such as bridges, public buildings, 
cemeteries, parks, and other institutions or forces have only limited 
significance in attracting or repelling population. 

Ecological factors may be classified under four general heads: 
(1) geographical, which includes climatic, topographic, and re- 
source conditions; (2) economic, which comprises a wide range 
and variety of phenomena such as the nature and organization of 
local industries, occupational distribution, and standard of living 
of the population; (3) cultural and technical, which include, in 


172 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


addition to the prevailing condition of the arts, the moral attitudes 
and taboos that are effective in the distribution of population and 
services; (4) political and administrative measures, such as tariff, 
taxation, immigration laws, and rules governing public utilities. 

Ecological factors are either positive or negative; they either 
attract or repel. It is part of the task of the ecologist to measure 
the dispersive and integrative influence of typical communal insti- 
tutions upon different elements of the population. Such knowledge 
would be of great value in city-planning, as it would enable the 
community to control the direction of its growth and structure. 
Effort must always be made to isolate the determining or limiting 
factors in a specific ecological situation. 

Ecological processes —By ecological process is meant the tend- 
ency in time toward special forms of spatial and sustenance group- 
ings of the units comprising an ecological distribution. There are 
five major ecological processes: concentration, centralization, seg- 
regation, invasion, succession. Each of these has an opposite or 
negative aspect, and each includes one or more subsidiary proc- 
esses. : 

Regional concentration.—This is the tendency of an increasing 
number of persons to settle in a given area or region. Density is a 
measure of population concentration in a given area at a given 
time. World-population density maps indicate in a general way the 
significance of geographical factors in the distribution of human 
beings. While formerly the limits of concentration were defined by 
the conditions of local food supply, modern industrialism has cre- 
ated new regions of concentration, the limits of which are defined 
not by the local food supply but by the strategic significance of 
location with reference to commerce and industry. 


The townward tendency is operating in every civilized country. “As in 
other countries so in Japan the dominant characteristic of the new industrial- 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 174 


ism is the trend of population from the country to the city. .... In the case 
of Tokyo, the capital, population during the last twenty-five years has in- 
creased from 857,780 to 2,500,000, while Osaka, the greatest industrial center 
of the Empire, during the same period has grown from 500,000 to over 1,500,- 
000; Nagoya, from 200,000 to 450,000, Yokohama has increased fourfold, and 
Kobe, fivefold. The five greatest industrial centers above mentioned have thus 
increased 325 per cent, or 300 per cent more than the nation as a whole. .... 
Great areas which ten years ago were taken up with rice fields or marshes are 
now reclaimed and covered with factories or labor tenements, and property 
values at the same time have gone up more than 1,000 per cent... .. These 
cities may be justly taken as focal points to reveal the metamorphosis of Japan 
from a feudal to an agricultural country, and now to the age of steam, elec- 
tricity, and steel.® 


The territorial concentration of population resulting from in- 
dustrialism and modern forms of transportation and communi- 
cation is more dynamic and unpredictable’ than were the older 
concentrations controlled by factors of the local environment. 
Modern territorial concentration is never the result of natural 
population increase alone. It always represents the shifting of 
population from one territory to another. Practically all food-pro- 
- ducing areas of countries which have come under the influence of 
modern machine industry have decreased in population during the 
last few decades.® 

The limits of regional concentration of population in a world- 
economy of large-scale industry are determined by the relative 


* Present-Day Impressions of Japan (1919), p. 530. 


* The census bureau has not recently published estimates of population increase 
for such dynamic cities as Los Angeles, Detroit, Seattle. 


* None of our leading food-producing states during the decade 1910-20 showed 
a percentage increase in population equal to the increase for the country as a whole. 

A recent study shows that three-fourths of Iowa’s counties had from 20 to 30 
per cent fewer people living on farms in 1920 than in 1885. Moreover, the farm 
population for the state as a whole decreased from 1,160,000 to 980,000 in this period, 
while the town and city population jumped from 600,000 to 1,420,000 (Wallaces’ 
Farmer,) March 29. 


174 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


competitive strength which the particular region possesses over 
other regions in the production and distribution of commodities. 
The degree of concentration attained by any locality is therefore 
a measure of its resource and location advantages as compared 
with those of its competitors. This strength is shown in the strug- 
gle for hinterland, raw materials, and markets, and depends upon 
the conditions of transportation and communication.® 

Regional specialization —Regional specialization in production 
is the natural outcome of competition under prevailing conditions 
of transportation and communication. Territorial specialization 
has two points of special significance for the human ecologist. In 
the first place it produces an economic interdependence between 
different regions and communities which changes the sustenance 
relations not only of the individuals within the community but also 
of the different communities to one another. In the second place it 
makes for regional selection of population by age, sex, race, and 
nationality in conformity with the occupational requirements of 
the particular form of specialized production. 

Dispersion —The obverse of concentration is dispersion. Con- 
centration in one region usually implies dispersion in another. 
Steam transportation, by increasing the fluidity of commodities, 
ushered in a new epoch in regional concentration; motor and elec- 
tric transportation, by increasing the fluidity of people, is now pro- 
ducing a new era in dispersion. Whatever retards the movement of 
commodities limits concentration, and whatever facilitates the 


® The literature of economic geography is largely devoted to discussion of the 
factors determining strategic points of commerce and industry. 

1 Few American cities at the present time have normal age and sex distribution 
of the population. The percentage of persons in the age group fifteen to forty-five is 
usually much higher for cities than for rural districts or for the country as a whole. 
Furthermore, industrial specialization tends to create single-sex cities. Textile cities 
such as Lowell, Paterson, New Bedford, have a predominance of women, while 
heavy-industry cities, such as Pittsburgh, Akron, Seattle, have a predominance 
of men. 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 175 


movement of people makes for dispersion. The forces at work dur- 
ing the past few years have been favorable to dispersion. High 
freight-rates, high taxes, and labor costs are forcing many indus- 
tries to disperse or relocate. On the other hand, the automobile and 
rapid-transit lines are permitting the concentrated urban popula- 
tions to spread out over adjacent territory. 

Centralization—Centralization as an ecological process should 
be distinguished from concentration, which is mere regional aggre- 
gation. Centralization is an effect of the tendency of human beings 
to come together at definite locations for the satisfaction of specific 
common interests, such as work, play, business, education. The 
satisfaction of each specific interest may be found in a different 
region. Centralization, therefore, is a temporary form of concen- 
tration, an alternate operation of centripetal and centrifugal forces. 
Centralization implies an area of participation with center and cir- 
cumference. It is the process of community formation. The fact 
that people come together at specific locations for the satisfaction 
of common interests affords a territorial basis for group conscious- 
ness and social control. Every communal unit, the village, town, 
city, and metropolis, is a function of the process of centralization. 

The focal point of centralization in the modern community is 
the retail shopping center. The market place, at which buyers and 
sellers meet, has always had a potent centralizing or community- 
making significance. Since economic contacts are more abstract 
and impersonal than other kinds of contacts, the trade center has 
more general attractive significance, and therefore more commu- 
nity-making influence, than the school, the church, the theater, or 
any other type of interest center. It is retail shopping that creates 
the “Main Street” of the little town and the city of the metropol- 
itan community. 

The distance from the center to the periphery of any unit of 
centralization depends upon the degree of specialization which the 


176 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


center has attained and on the conditions of transportation and 
communication. In regions or districts where human energy is the 
chief motor power the units of centralization are seldom more than 
a few miles in radius, as is illustrated by the village communities of 
the Orient. In the agricultural town of America, prior to the advent 
of the automobile, Warren H. Wilson found that the “team-haul’”™* 
(the distance that a team could travel to the center and return on 
the same day) defined the outer limits of the trade area. 

Focal points of centralization are invariably in competition 
with other points for the attention and patronage of the inhabitants 
of the surrounding area. Thus the present conditions of centraliza- 
tion always represent but a temporary stage of unstable equilib- 
rium within a zone of competing centers. The degree of centraliza- 
tion at any particular center is, therefore, a measure of its relative 
drawing-power under existing cultural and economic conditions. 
The introduction of a new form of transportation, such as the auto- 
mobile, completely disturbs the ecological equilibrium and makes 
for a reaccommodation on a new scale of distance. 

Centralization under any given conditions of transit and con- 
centration takes place in cumulative fashion, increasing with its 
own momentum until it reaches the point of equilibrium or satura- 
tion. Then, unless relief is afforded by the introduction of new 
avenues of transit, a retrograde movement commences, giving rise 
to new units of centralization or new developments of old units. In 
this way new communities are born within the metropolitan area. 

Centralization may take place in two ways: first, by an addi- 
tion to the number and variety of interests at a common location, 
as, for instance, when the rural trade center becomes also the locus 
of the school, church, post-office, and dance hall; second, by an 
increase in the number of persons finding satisfaction of a single 
interest at the same location. 


The American Town. 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 177 


Specialization and centralization —As the regional concentra- 
tion and fluidity of the population increases, territorial specializa- 
tion of interest satisfaction follows. The urban area becomes 
studded with centers of various sizes and degrees of specialization, 
which is a magnet drawing to itself the appropriate age, sex, cul- 
tural, and economic groups. Time specialization takes place as well 
as place specialization. At different hours of the day and night the 
_ waves of selective centralization ebb and flow. As a New York 
bohemian facetiously remarked, the commuter’s train carries to 
the city in the early morning the workers, an hour or so later the 
clerkers, and about midday the shirkers. A similar cycle is repeated 
by the night population of amusement-seekers. 

Types of centers —Communal points of centralization may be 
classified according to (1) size and importance as indicated by land 
values and concentration; (2) the dominant interest producing the 
centralization, such as work, business, amusement; (3) the dis- 
tance or area of the zone of participation. 

Every community has its main center called the main street, 
the town, or the city, which is a constellation of specialized centers. 
The larger the community, the more specialized are the divisions 
of its center and the wider the zone of patronage. Civilization is a 
product of centralization. The evolution of economic organization 
from village and town to metropolitan economy is but the exten- 
sion and specialization of centralization of each of the dominant 
interests of life.” 

Location and movement of centers —Centralization is a func- 
tion of transportation and communication. Centers are located 
where lines of traffic meet or intersect, and vary in importance, 
other things equal, with the number and variety of converging lines 
of transit. The “city” is the point of convergence of all the main 


See N.S. B. Gras, An Introduction to Economic History. 


178 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


avenues of transportation and communication, both local and in- 
tercommunal. 

Most centers are responsive to the trends of distribution and 
segregation of the local population. The main retail shopping cen- 
ter, which is usually the point of highest land value, tends to move 
in the direction of the higher economic residential areas, but is held 
fairly close to the median center of population within the zone of 
participation.** Local business centers are more mobile, they re- 
spond quite accurately to local trends of segregation and fluidity. 
Financial centers are less responsive to the currents of travel. 
Being centers of wide participation, they tend to become of great 
physical value, and therefore acquire great stability.“ Work cen- 
ters are controlled by forces which frequently transcend the 
bounds of community; those of the basic manufacturing type tend 
to move out to the fringe of the community, thus making for decen- 
tralization. 

Leisure-time centers, not associated with trade centers, are 
comparatively unstable, as is indicated by the dynamic changes in 
land values.*®> Conditions of concentration and fluidity become de- 
termining factors in their distribution. The motion-picture theater, 
operating on the chain-store principle, is causing new centers to be 
established far from the downtown center, and new white-light 
areas are arising in different sections of the city.*® 


* The point of highest land’ value in the business center of Seattle has moved 
during the last fifty years in the same direction and at the same rate as the median 
center of population. 


1 Note the location and great stability of Wall Street. 

1 See Felix Isman, Real Estate (1924). 

** This is well illustrated by the present tendency in Chicago. During the last 
few months three motion-picture theaters of the “superdreadnaught” type have been 
erected far out from the loop at pivotal intersections of transportation. Each repre- 


sents an expenditure of from two and one half to three million dollars and has a seat- 
ing capacity of about five thousand. 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 179 


Decentralization and recentralization.—These are but phases 
of the centralization process. New units of centralization are con- 
stantly appearing and established units constantly changing in 
significance.*’ By decentralization is meant the tendency for zone 
areas of centralization to decrease in size, which of course implies a 
multiplication of centers, each of relatively less importance. In this 
sense decentralization is taking place in all metropolitan areas with 
reference to some interests, while at the same time more extreme 
centralization is occurring in connection with other interests. In 
studying the process of centralization, therefore, it is important to 
find what particular aspects of life are being organized on the basis 
of smaller centers, what on the larger centers, and what seem to be 
the factors involved. 

General observation leads one to believe that the centralization 
of any interest varies directly with the element of choice involved 
in the satisfaction of the interest. Standardization of commodities, 
both in quality and in price, minimizes the element of choice, with 
the result that all primary standardized services, such as grocery 
stores, drug stores, soft-drink parlors, are very widely distributed. 
On the other hand, the more specialized services tend to become 
more and more highly centralized.*® 

Segregation.—Segregation is used here with reference to the 
concentration of population types within a community. Every area 
of segregation is the result of the operation of a combination of 
forces of selection. There is usually, however, one attribute of 
selection that is more dominant than the others, and which becomes 

™ Note John T. Faris, The Romance of Forgotten Towns (1925). 

** A study of the shopping habits of about two thousand families of a middle- 
class residential district in Seattle showed that about 90 per cent bought their grocer- 
ies in the neighborhood; 70 per cent, their drugs; 50 per cent, their hardware; and a 
smaller percentage, their furniture and clothes. In leisure-time activities, a much 


higher percentage attended local, rather than downtown, churches, but the opposite 
was true of the attendance at the moving-picture theater. 


180 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


the determining factor of the particular segregation. Economic 
segregation is the most primary and general form. It results from 
economic competition and determines the basic units of the eco- 
logical distribution. Other attributes of segregation, such as lan- 
guage, race, or culture, function within the spheres of appropriate 
economic levels. 

Economic segregation decreases in degree of homogeneity as 
we ascend the economic scale; the lower the economic level of an 
area, the more uniform the economic status of the inhabitants, 
because the narrower the range of choice. But as we ascend the 
economic scale each level affords wider choice, and thvrefore more 
cultural homogeneity. 

The slum is the area of minimum choice. It is the product of 
compulsion rather than design. The slum, therefore, represents a 
homogeneous collection as far as economic competency is con- 
cerned, but a most heterogeneous aggregation in all other respects. 
Being an area of minimum choice, the slum serves as the reservoir 
for the economic wastes of the city. It also becomes the hiding- 
place for many services which are forbidden by the mores but 
which cater to the wishes of residents scattered throughout the 
community. 

Invasion —Invasion is a process of group displacement; it im- 
plies the encroachment of one area of segregation upon another, 
usually an adjoining, area. The term “invasion,” in the historic 
sense, implies the displacement of a higher by a lower cultural 
group. While this is perhaps the more common process in the local 
community, it is not, however, the only form of invasion. Fre- 
quently a higher economic group drives out the lower-income in- 
habitants, thus enacting a new cycle of the succession. 

Invasion should be distinguished from atomatization; the lat- 
ter is a consequence of individual displacement without conscious- 
ness of displacement or change in cultural level. 


THE SCOPE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY 181 


Succession—In human and plant communities change seems 
to take place in cyclic fashion. Regions within a city pass through 
different stages of use and occupancy in a regularity of manner 
which may eventually be predictable and expressible in mathe- 
matical terms. The process of obsolescence and physical deteriora- 
tion of buildings makes for a change in type of occupancy which 
operates in a downward tendency in rentals, selecting lower and 
lower income levels of population, until a new cycle is commenced, 
either by a complete change in use of the territory, such as a 
change from residence to business, or by a new development of the 
old use, the change, say, from an apartment to a hotel form of 
dwelling. 

The thing that characterizes a succession is a complete change 
in population type between the first and last stages, or a complete 
change in use. While there is not the intimate connection between 
the different stages in a human succession that is found between 
the stages in a plant succession, nevertheless there is an economic 
continuity which makes the cycles in a human succession quite as 
pronounced and as inevitable as those in the plant succession. 
Real-estate investigators are beginning to plot the stages in use 
succession by mathematical formulas. 

The entire community may pass through a series of succes- 
sions, due to mutations of its economic base affecting its relative 
importance in the larger ecological constellation. The population 
type usually changes with the changing of the economic base, as, 
for instance, when an agricultural community changes to a mining 
or a manufacturing community. 

Structure.—Ecological processes always operate within a more 
or less rigid structural base. The relative spatial fixity of the road 
and the establishment furnishes the base in which the ecological 
processes function. The fact that the movements of men and com- 
modities follow narrow channels of rather fixed spatial significance 


182 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


gives a structural foundation to human spatial relations which is 
absent in the case of plant and animal communities. 

The history of civilization shows a gradually increasing flexi- 
bility of the structural skeleton in which ecological processes oper- 
ate. Prior to the advent of the railroad the movements of people 
and commodities were largely controlled by the course of the water 
systems: river, lakes, and seas. The coming of the railroads in the 
early part of the nineteenth century marked the first great release 
with regard to population distribution. New regions of concentra- 
tion immediately arose, while old regions either declined or com- 
menced a new cycle of growth. The advent of motor transporta- 
tion and the good-roads movement affords a freedom to human 
distribution which is unique in history, making for a redistribution 
of people and institutions on a much more flexible base than was 
ever known before. 

R. D. McKENZIE 


UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 


THE RISE OF THE METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY 


Economic history is in part the story of social adjustment. In- 
dividuals and families form groups for the production of goods and 
services. The nature of the productive group changes from time to 
time in accordance with general conditions inside the group and in 
the world at large. No simple formula can comprehend the whole 
situation. A partial expression of the changes is to be found in eco- 
nomic adjustments to meet biological needs. In other words, popu- 
lation tends to outrun subsistence under the currently prevailing 
modes of production. Accordingly, new economic organizations 
arise, new habits of life, and new modes of thinking. As one looks 
over the changing forms he is struck with the fact that, generally 
speaking, they involve a continuous subdivision and specialization 
of employment, together with an increasing dependence on one’s 
fellows in the group. In other words, there arises a greater freedom 
of choice of occupations for the individual; but once the choice is 
made, freedom vanishes before the greater dependence on other 
workers. This might be regarded as a law of social progress, if we 
were inclined to magnify it to the position of a law. 

In obedience to the force already indicated there have arisen 
five forms of general economic organization. These are collectional 
economy, cultural nomadic economy, settled village economy, town 
economy, and now, in modern times, metropolitan economy. Un- 
der one term or another, according to emphasis on this or that pe- 
culiarity, the first four types have been accepted, though not with- 
out challenge, as general stages in human genesis. Commonly after 
the town stage, however, has been put national economy, as the 
fifth and final stage. 

The town, under town economy, was at once the center of an 


183 


184 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


economic organization and an agency of economic regulation. When 
town economy weakened and finally disappeared its dual function 
was found to be divided, the réle of economic organizer going to the 
economic metropolis and the function of regulation to the political 
body, in the classical period, the empire, and in modern times, the 
national state. It is noteworthy at this point that one of the out- 
standing differences between the ancient and the modern periods is 
that, while the ancient period had no metropolis to put in the place 
of the town on the side of actual economic organization, the mod- 
ern period has had just that, and more: it also has a national state 
instead of an empire of force. 

The wide national state, such as England or France, was the 
sheltering fold within which the economic metropolis could work 
its way. The United States of America, because of its size, wealth, 
and lack of medieval tradition, has been the most fertile spot, at 
least up to date, for metropolitan development. The most favor- 
ably located town has grown into a great commercial nexus where- 
in goods and services are exchanged on an unprecedentedly large 
scale. 

The new metropolitan economy was based upon an internal or- 
ganization of productive forces and an external relationship with 
other units either of the same order or of more primitive form. In- 
ternally the new unit was made up of a great commercial city as 
nucleus and a large surrounding area as hinterland. In the nucleus 
were the men of big business who looked out upon the hinterland 
as their field of conquest. In the big surrounding area of the unit 
were the towns and the farms, the railroads and the mines, the 
canals and the forests. Never before were so many millions of men 
brought into so big a unit of producers and consumers. Since the 
sixteenth century this has been the outstanding event in economic 
history, of which all else, however important, is but an episode or a 
phase of the larger whole. 


RISE OF THE METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY 185 


But the metropolitan unit of nucleus and hinterland, such as 
Boston and New England, the Twin Cities and the Northwest, did 
not stand alone and isolated. The dependence of center and area 
might be great, but it did not preclude a further dependence on 
other metropolitan units or on distant-town economic units, where 
the latter still existed. Indeed, one of the chief functions of the 
great commercial center was to establish and maintain connections 
with the rest of the world. In that center were the business houses 
which trade with parts both at home and abroad on behalf of the 
people, whether residing in the center itself or in the hinterland. Liv- 
ing in a New Hampshire town, I would get English wares through 
Boston. Living in a North Dakota village, I would procure Italian 
olive oil or Philadelphia shoes through the Twin Cities. I could 
order direct in some cases, but it would not pay me. 

The concentration of economic resources in large metropolitan 
centers has brought about the most effective utilization of re- 
sources, human and material, yet known to society. Never has so 
much resulted from so little effort. Never have labor, capital, and 
management been so effective. In the hinterland one district may 
specialize in mining; another, in lumbering; and a third, in agricul- 
ture. Some cultivators may produce cereals; and others, dairy 
products. Small people may keep bees or chickens, or grow fruit or 
vegetables. But their products, in whole or in part, are destined for 
the metropolitan market, either for use within the metropolis or for 
distribution elsewhere. 

There, in the metropolitan center, are the specializing agencies 
which manage the exchange of the whole group. Retailers, of 
course, operate there, but much more characteristically the whole- 
salers who gather the products of agriculture and industry for dis- 
tribution among retailers. The common carriers have their head- 
quarters in the metropolitan nucleus, as also the railroads, the 
steamship lines, the motor-bus companies, and the express com- 


186 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


panies. Cold-storage plants, warehouses, and elevators are largest 
and most numerous in the big centers. And, in a very real sense 
above all these, are the big banks, trust companies, and insurance 
companies. 

The economies of the large business, though not without limit, 
are very great. The simple fact is that society can get most out of 
concentration. And concentration in large businesses is impossible 
without concentration in large centers. In the merchandising, stor- 
age, and transportation of goods, in the accumulation and distribu- 
tion of labor, and in the amassing and using of capital and credit 
the big center has an advantage over any alternative arrangement. 
The least will go the farthest. To the metropolis it matters little 
whether combines form or decay, whether associations are estab- 
lished or torn asunder; the large-scale business that succeeds must 
be on a metropolitan basis. That business may, indeed, transcend 
the single metropolitan unit in one state or in many. The physical 
basis and the economic advantages remain the same. 

I can think of no better analogy than the web of the common 
spider. This efficient builder establishes first his radial lines run- 
ning out in all directions from the center. Then the concentric fas- 
teners are put in. At last the spider, posted at the center, is ready 
to do business. He is about equally distant from all parts. He can 
go in any direction. For Ms amount of silk spun he ae the largest 
possible income. 

No rival league of towns, the Hanseatic or any other, could 
compete with the modern metropolis. Such towns fall into positions 
of dependence. They may be important as collecting centers of 
raw materials and distributing centers of supplies, but they are 
subordinate. They may be commercial, industrial, or financial sat- 
ellites, but they shine with a borrowed light. 

Into the making of metropolitan economic units have gone the 
efforts of generations of business men seeking to increase their in- 


RISE OF THE METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY 187 


come. By a process of trial and error, without any far-sighted plan, 
they have reached out, disastrously here and successfully there. 
Those persons who succeeded made a fortune. If they wrought in 
the most favorable center they prospered well. And those who 
bought real estate and improved it prospered with them. In this 
way private ambition has served public needs. 

A metropolitan community arises only where conditions are 
favorable. Natural resources must be considerable: in the early 
days, foodstuffs and textile fibers; in the recent period, coal and 
iron. Lacking these, such a city as Denver can hardly ever aspire 
to metropolitan proportions. It is, of course, a question whether 
human ingenuity and industry can take the place of rich deposits 
of metals and fuel. The Chinese may have to build their chief 
hopes upon their labor, which in some parts, at least, seem rather 
vain. Transportation facilities are, of course, also indispensable. 
The land must be not too rocky for highways and railroads. Nice’s 
ambition to be commercially great meets the barriers of mountains 
of rock. Where land and navigable water meet, the prospects are 
greatest. So far there is no full-fledged metropolitan community 
without a combination of water and land transportation. The fu- 
ture, however, may be different when aerial navigation attains a 
commercial basis. No metropolitan community can arise unless 
situated at a respectful distance from its neighbors. Providence 
has no chance, nor has Milwaukee. Baltimore has lost partly be- 
cause too near to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia has suffered be- 
cause too near New York. It is not so much a matter of physical 
crowding as availability of supplies in adjoining districts. So far as 
society has yet developed, it seems to be true that there can be no 
metropolitan community in tropical parts where the atmosphere is 
both hot and humid. The handicap is too great, both in the matter 
of manual labor and managerial effort. 

Emphasis has already been put on a wide free-trade area with- 


188 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


in the national state. So wide has this been in the United States of 
America, and so numerous have been the great metropolitan cen- 
ters resulting, that we may some day come to compare this coun- 
try, not with France or Germany, but with the whole of Europe. 

The Canadian boundary line has already acted as a limit to, or 
at least as a restriction upon, the growth of northern metropolitan 
centers, as the Mexican line may some day hold back the full ma- 
turity of southern centers, if they ever arise. International bound- 
ary lines are already too narrowly drawn in Europe. Antwerp is 
held back and the people of the district suffer because of the re- 
stricted area of free trade open to it. The late war led to reaction- 
ary economic results in so far as it cut up the Austrian empire and 
made difficult the growth of large centers. Vienna has been cut off 
from much of its Ainterland. Constantinople has been put in a diffi- 
cult commercial position. Wars of conquest may affect unfavor- 
ably the sensibilities of small national groups, but there can be no 
doubt that the enlargement of the political unit makes for efficiency 
in economic organization, which in material comforts ultimately 
redounds to the advantage of all racial and national groups, large 
and small. 

While the early developments in metropolitan organization 
were unplanned by individuals or governments, the later steps have 
not been wholly without direction. In recent years the chambers of 
commerce of cities so far apart as St. Louis in America and Mar- 
seilles in France have done not a little to help the development of 
their regions. In both can be found clever and well-formed men 
specially charged with the duty of metropolitan advance. 

It is not possible to state precisely when metropolitan economy 
arose. Political metropolitan centers, or great capitals, are of course 
as ancient as Babylon. And some metropolitan economic centers 
began early to make headway without getting far. Venice and 
Florence made a start in the fifteenth century. Paris, and particu- 
larly London, got under way in the sixteenth century, and the last 


RISE OF THE METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY 189 


named became the first to attain full proportions. In America 
progress was rapid in the period of canal, and especially railroad, 
construction. Generally speaking, we may say that a metropolitan 
community arises at a favorable conjunction of two circumstances, 
the economic development of the hinterland and the rise of busi- 
ness ability and organization in the center. In old countries it fol- 
lows town economy. In new lands it may even accompany the 
development of towns in positions of subordination. 

Just as the development of towns in town economy displays 
steps or phases, so does the growth of metropolitan economy illus- 
trate certain steps which stand out more or less clearly. In the first 
part of the growth we see the prospective center reach out its tenta- 
cles by land and sea to secure supplies and to sell goods. It creates 
a situation and a feeling of dependence, though its means of ex- 
ploitation are strictly limited. In short, it begins to organize the 
market. Then comes the development of manufacturing and trans- 
portation. In America these two in many parts grew up hand in 
hand. And with them, but lagging a bit behind, came the close 
financial knitting together of the whole area. 

As time goes on, where the area is politically unrestricted, as in 
America, the number of metropolitan units increases. While in 
England only two are well developed, and in France, at most, four, 
in America there are almost a dozen. At first New York and the 
overambitious New Orleans sought to carve out two empires for 
themselves. The former subordinates of these two centers have 
now come to curb the one and to supplant the other. Out of their 
envisaged dominions have been carved economic provinces by 
Cleveland, Chicago, the Twin Cities, St. Louis, and Kansas City. 
And where they hardly dared to aspire to sway, San Francisco has 
established a dynasty, firm but not unchallenged. 

Perhaps we shall find that the present general drift is toward 
more compact metropolitan units with smaller hinterlands, with 
centers containing a larger percentage of the total population, and 


190 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


with all the parts more closely knitted into a unit of mutual de- 
pendence. 

At first the whole movement was unconscious. It was a drift 
rather than a plan. It was not understood even by publicists, and 
by governments at times not advanced, though in England much 
was done to help London, both by the corn laws and the navigation 
acts. But now the nature of marketing, of mutual dependence in 
goods and services, is coming to be well understood. Planning can 
begin, indeed has begun, as we have seen. 

The significance of this is in part that co-operative associations 
can, with increasing promise of success, play the part that their 
patrons of early days dreamed of but knew not how to bring about. 
At first only private initiative with its watchful eye could make any 
headway, could feel the need for proper adjustment. But now the 
world may read, and the farmer or fruit-grower, the small business 
man as well as the large, may embark on enterprises which look 
toward the exploitation of a metropolitan market, or even cutting 
right across the lines where opportunities serve, now here, now 
there. 

It is the curse of progress that with advance goes some draw- 
back. Our metropolitan organization seems only to hasten the prog- 
ress of pressure on subsistence which offers but two possibilities. 
One is the development of some more effective organization than 
any yet known. The other is going backward to town economy, 
where the Chinese now are and where they seem to stick. Just as 
town and village alternated for at least three thousand years in 
Europe, went up and down in a teeter-like motion, so may metro- 
politan and town economy struggle in doubtful victory, till circum- 
stances favor neither, but another, and as yet unheralded, form of 
economic exploitation. I have been blamed for not going beyond 
metropolitan economy. Not modesty, but ignorance, prevents me 
from doing so. 

Metropolitan economy has meant also more human intercourse. 


RISE OF THE METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY tor 


It has tended to level off local distinctions and peculiarities, so that 
metropolitan slang in speech and style in dress come to pervade a 
wide area. It has created a means for the spread of disease, social 
and physical. Metropolitan economy with its rapid intermetropol- 
itan connections has prepared the world for disastrous results from 
epidemics which advancing science will have difficulty in com- 
batting. 

Today the effective political control is national and provincial, 
or, in America, federal and state. A possible rival system is on 
another basis: it is international and regional. The state is so con- 
nected with prejudice and vanity that its continued usefulness is 
doubtful. The province is so narrow that it hampers metropolitan 
regional growth. A new alignment of forces would be a widening 
international organization based on metropolitan regional units. 
Unfortunately for such a plan the metropolitan regional unit has 
been, and remains, informal. It has no constitution, no officials, no 
boundaries. And yet it has a reality which is being grappled for by 
widely separated persons and groups. Geographers emphasize it in 
their work. The study of marketing has isolated the phenomena 
and traced the history. Students of law have recognized the need 
of it. Chambers of commerce have planned to further it. Gover- 
nors of provinces or local states have felt the necessity of getting 
together, at least for temporary regional consultations. Rivers do 
not flow for the convenience of provinces. Plant diseases re- 
spect no provincial boundaries. Railroads have to run through and 
across, without regard to administrative lines. But metropolitan 
grouping, clumsy as any grouping must be, is the smallest now 
commensurate with real economic situations. Down at the bottom 
is the metropolitan region. Away above is the expanding interna- 
tional state. These are both dreams, for the present blocked by 
actual states and real provinces. 


N.S. B. Gras 


UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 


THE DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE IN 
THE CITY: A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 


SEGREGRATION AND PERSONAL DISORGANIZATION 

The commercialized vice areas of the city represent a natural 
segregation of individuals on the basis of their interests and atti- 
tudes. They attract, on the one hand, persons who seek sexual ex- 
citement, and on the other, those who exploit sex as a business or 
profession. Indeed, the very development of vice areas is depend- 
ent upon the conditions making for personal disorganization, since 
under these circumstances the impulses and desires get released 
from the socially approved channels and consequently find an out- 
let in the pattern of vice. 

Concerning the more or less temporary population of the vice 
areas it may be said that to a large extent the patrons of commer- 
cialized vice, and to a lesser extent amateur and clandestine prosti- 
tutes, fit into the category of dual persons who circulate between 
two conflicting social worlds, namely, a world of respectability in 
the residential neighborhoods and a world of disrespectability in 
the downtown districts. The former offers them a life of shelter 
and security according to the sanctioned definitions of society; the 
latter, a life of adventure and romance in the realm of the disap- 
proved. Again, a large quota of the more or less permanent ha- 
bitués of the commercialized vice areas consists of persons whose 
demoralization has made them outcasts from respectable society, 
and also of those individuals who, growing up amid great neg- 
lect, have developed a disorderly, wild, unregulated scheme of life 
which makes them unfit to enter organized society without passing 
through a rather complete re-education. 


192 


DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE 193 


THE MORAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL ISOLATION OF VICE 


But vice is usually censored by the mores of the community. It 
is not merely defined as immoral; it is also conceived as pestilen- 
tial. And its open patrons and entrepeneurs are relegated to a so- 
cial pariah existence. Vice has, therefore, been forced to hide from 
the moral order of society in order to flourish. 

Because of this moral isolation vice gets spatially separated 
from wholesome family and neighborhood life in the community. 
The moral attitudes operate as barriers to isolate geographically 
this peculiar form of human activity. 

Accordingly, commercialized vice has assumed two character- 
istic locations in the community: one at the center, the other at the 
circumference. It is well known that the central parts of the city, 
because of the decaying neighborhoods, have very little resistance 
to the invasion of vice resorts. Furthermore, commercialized vice 
on the fringe of the city, lodged at inns, taverns, and roadhouses, 
meets with practically no opposition, since the hinterland of the 
urban community, due to its sparsely settled condition and its de- 
cadent rural culture, is really unorganized. 

But the vice resorts are usually prevented from assuming this 
most central location. In the first place legitimate business such 
as large retail stores, financial establishments, sky-scraper office 
buildings, is able to pay the high rents necessary in the competition 
for space. In the second place the public generally exerts pressure 
to drive vice out of the community market, although, as will be 
pointed out later, a large part of it is able to evade suppression and 
surveillance through subterfuge and camouflage. But commercial- 
ized vice can assume a decentralized location without threatening 
its existence. The very urgency of its demand, namely, this desire 
for sexual thrill, means that patrons will seek the supply even in 
the most remote places of the city. In fact, the delay entailed in 


194 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


this pursuit adds to the intensity of the urge as well as to the excite- 
ment of the chase. 

The central position of commercialized vice may be said to 
represent the natural, unimpeded play of economic forces. The de- 
centralized or outlying location signifies, in the main, a reaction to 
political factors, namely, those of legal control and public suppres- 
sion. However, rapid transit and the automobile have made these 
ordinarily remote sections readily accessible, and consequently 
commercialized vice has gone with the tide of an outgoing pleasure 
traffic. 


VICE AREAS RELATED TO THE NATURAL ZONES OF THE CITY 


A study of the particular regions of the city in which commer- 
cialized vice flourishes will reveal more definitely the factors that 
determine the distribution and location of this activity throughout 
the community. In order to get an accurate picture of the exact 
regions in which commercialized vice exists, a spot map was made 
from the cases dealt with by the Committee of Fifteen of Chicago 
during 1922." The vice resorts handled by this law-enforcing agen- 
cy extended radially from the center into the surrounding residen- 
tial areas, principally along the important traffic arteries. Trans- 
ferred to E. W. Burgess’ chart describing the natural organization 
of the city,” the commercialized vice areas as revealed by this spot 
map are found to be implanted upon the central business zone 
(Zone I), the zone of transition (Zone II) with its slums, immi- 
grant and racial colonies, lodging- and rooming-house area, and 


* The year 1922 was selected to show the more recent tendencies in the distribu- 
tion of vice in the modern American city. Ten years earlier, before public repression 
had produced its noticeable effects, the vice resorts, if plotted, would probably show 
a greater concentration in the near central regions and less dispersion into the more 
decentralized neighborhoods. 


* See chart in Park and Burgess, The City (University of Chicago Press, 1925); 
article by E. W. Burgess on “The Growth of the City,” ibid., p. 55. 


DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE 195 


the restricted residential zone (Zone IV), which includes apart- 
ment houses as well as single homes.’ It may be said, therefore, 
that commercialized vice areas represent a parasitic formation, 
since they thrive upon the natural organization of the city. 


THE ADAPTATION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE TO NATURAL AREAS 


A closer examination of the Committee of Fifteen data in ref- 
erence to the economic and cultural order of the city shows that 
this agency was dealing with assignation hotels in the central busi- 
ness district, brothels in the slum, and “immoral flats” in the high- 
class residential area. It is clear, therefore, that commercialized 
vice makes special adaptation to the type of neighborhood invaded. 
The peculiar conditions characterizing these regions in which com- 
mercialized vice is located constitute very definite factors in the 
distribution and segregation of this parasitic activity. 

Prostitution, supposedly excluded from the center of the city, 
actually, however, is able to evade surveillance by certain camou- 
flages. While the brothel type of prostitution in most instances can- 
not exist in the central business district, not merely because of its 
open, public character, but also because of its inability to command 
a site in face of competition from financial, retail, and wholesale 
establishments, the freer and more clandestine form of commer- 
cialized vice surmounts these obstacles. Streetwalkers have never 
been eliminated from the downtown districts. Moreover, the activ- 
ities of the streetwalker in very recent times is not so easily dis- 
tinguished from the rather wide-spread practice of making casual 

*In Chicago the rooming-house district of Zone II and the apartment-house 
area of Zone IV merge into one another on the direct south, west, and north sides, a 
fact which is due primarily to the high value of land resulting from favorable loca- 
tions and good transportation facilities. The zone of workingmen’s homes (IIT) in 
Chicago is found largely on the northwest and southwest sides of the city, outside the 
lines of greatest mobility, and consequently outside the regions in which commer- 
cialized vice flourishes best. However, it is doubtful whether the vice resorts in any 


city can successfully invade Zone III because of the strong family and neighborhood 
organization found there. 


196 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


acquaintances. A large number of these clandestine prostitutes 
have access to the cheaper hotels, many of which are used for assig- 
nation purposes. 

Prostitution is frequently an insidious adjunct to the downtown 
“high life,” the social whirl centering about the restaurants, the ~ 
cafés, the theaters. The existence of commercialized vice in the 
central business district is an inevitable part of the flux and flow of 
the region. Besides being a market place for thrill, the downtown 
district is a region of anonymity, where conduct either remains un- 
censored or is subject merely to the most secondary observation 
and regulation. Under such conditions personal taboos disintegrate 
and appetites become released from their sanctioned moorings. 

But streetwalking and assignation hotels by no means exhaust 
the adaptations which commercialized vice makes to the central 
business district. It frequently insinuates itself under the protec- 
tive coloration of massage parlors and bathhouses. In these in- 
stances the “‘vice interests” are exploiting a very natural relation- 
ship of bathing and massage to sexual excitement. 


THE SLUM AS THE HABITAT OF THE BROTHEL 

The area of deterioration encircling the central business dis- 
trict furnishes the native habitat for the brothel type of prostitu- 
tion. All the conditions favorable to the existence of this flagrant, 
highly organized form ef commercialized vice are to be found there. 
In the slums the vice emporia not only find very accessible loca- 
tions, but also experience practically no organized resistance from 
the decaying neighborhoods adjacent. And, furthermore, they are 
located in a region where the pattern of vice is an inevitable expres- 
sion or product of great mobility and vast social disorganization. 


UNORGANIZED PROSTITUTION IN ROOMING-HOUSES 


The rooming-house sections and, to some extent, the tenement 
districts harbor an unorganized form of prostitution. The free- 


DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE 197 


lance, clandestine prostitutes, unattached to brothels, resort fre- 
quently to furnished rooms as a place to live and “bring tricks.” 
The landlords or landladies either demand high rents from them or 
| require a special room tax on each service. Because of the great 
| anonymity in these rooming-house areas the activities of these pros- 
_ titutes go on relatively unnoticed and consequently undisturbed. 
| Here again the location is one of proximity to the demand, for it is 
_a matter of common observation that the rooming-house and lodg- 
_ing-house areas quarter the hordes of homeless men in the com- 
. munity. 


IMMORAL FLATS IN APARTMENT-HOUSE AREAS 


Commercialized vice has recently invaded the livelier apart- 
| ment-house districts of the city and has appeared at this location in 
_ the form of “immoral flats,” “buffet flats,” and “call flats.” The 
presence of vice in this decentralized part of the city, such as in the 
 rooming-house sections and even on the fringe of the community, is 
due partly to a reaction to public repression. But the prostitution 
- which has fled the slum for the apartment-house area has material- 
ly changed its external dress. Commercialized vice in the apart- 
ment house, as a rule, seems to be much less organized and much 
more refined than it is in the brothel. 

The immoral flats are really only accessible by taxicab or auto- 
- mobile, since they hug the boulevards rather than the street-car 
lines. They attract, therefore, a high-class patronage, a sporting 
element that does not subscribe to the cheaper entertainment pro- 
vided by the brothel. The apartment areas in which this externally 
changed form of prostitution is found present a very inviting field 
to commercialized vice, not merely because of the lively and mobile 
character of these regions, but also because of the anonymity and 
individuation produced by the highly mechanized living conditions. 


198 ‘ THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


INDEXES OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE AREAS 


Certain of the factors and forces that determine the distribu- 
tion of vice throughout the community are reducible to indexes, 
which help to delimit, as well as explain, the distribution of vice in 
the city. It may be said that commercialized vice is found in those 
regions characterized by burlesque shows, rescue missions, crime 
and other major social problems, immigrant and racial colonies, 
disproportion of sexes, declining population, and high land values 
and low rents.* 


THE BURLESQUE SHOWS 


The burlesque shows of large American cities, if plotted on a 
map giving the distribution of vice resorts, would fall within the 
areas in which flourish the most open, public forms of prostitution. 
This part of the larger commercialized vice areas of the city is real- 
ly the homeless man’s playground, for, besides these cheap theaters, 
the brothels, saloons, gambling-dens, fortune-tellers, “dime mu- 
seums,” and lady barbers compete with one another in catering to 
the play and sex interests of the non-family men of the slum. The 
burlesque show, or “border drama,” is symbolic of the fact that a 
veritable man’s community, with all its characteristic patterns of 
disorder, exists at the core of the city. 


THE RESCUE MISSIONS 


It is well known that the rescue mission has pioneered among 
the brothels and vice resorts of the urban community. From a spot 
map showing the characteristic institutions of hobohemia in Chi- 
cago it is quite evident that these rescue missions are located on, or 

“For more detailed discussion of these indexes, see Walter C. Reckless, “Indices 


of Commercialized Vice Areas,” Journal of Applied Sociology, January-February, 
1926. 


DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE 199 


adjacent to, the notorious rialtos of the underworld.’ In fact, the 
“church on the stem” has grown up to reclaim the “lost souls” of 
the city’s slums, and consequently points to social forces at work in 
the community to counteract those making for demoralization. 


CRIME AND OTHER SOCIAL PROBLEMS 


The underworlds of vice and crime have usually been insepa- 
rable. The distribution of crime throughout the urban community 
portrays, in the main, the location of commercialized vice. A spot 
map of felony cases,° giving the place of the crime and the address 
of the criminal, which were reviewed by the Chicago Crime Com- 
mission during 1921, describes about the same territorial distribu- 
tion for crime as the spot map of the cases dealt with by the Com- 
mittee of Fifteen of Chicago in 1922 does for vice.’ On analysis it 
appears that both crime and vice depend upon mobility and collec- 
tions of people; both forms of activity are legally and morally iso- 
lated and consequently must hide in the disorganized neighborhoods 
in order to thrive. It is also interesting to note that commercialized 
vice exists in the same general regions of the city characterized by 
the distribution of the cases of poverty, divorce, desertion, suicide, 
abandoned infants.* Indeed, these problems, considered ecologi- 

° This map was prepared by Nels Anderson in his study of The Hobo (Univer- 
sity of Chicago Press, 1923). It was not included in the first printing of the study. 


* The spot map of felony cases reviewed by the Chicago Crime Commission was 
prepared by Clifford Shaw, research fellow in the Department of Sociology at the 
University of Chicago. 

™ There are certain discrepancies between the two maps. As would be expected, 
crime shows a somewhat wider distribution than vice. Furthermore, a large propor- 
tion of burglaries occur in the wealthier residential districts, which are usually free 
from commercialized vice. 

8 Observation based on a comparison of the distribution of these social problems 
in Chicago as shown by spot maps prepared by the Department of Sociology at the 
University of Chicago. 


200 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


cally, indicate the areas of greatest social disorganization within 
the city. 


IMMIGRANT AND RACIAL COLONIES 


Since commercialized vice thrives amid the vast social disor- 
ganization of the urban community, the major part of which is 
localized in the slum, it is to be expected that the underworld in- 
trudes itself in the immigrant and racial colonies. The relationship 
of Chinatown to the commercialized vice areas of American cities 
is too well known to need elaboration. It is only fair to say, how- 
ever, that the assumption of the usual parasitic activities by the 
Chinese in the Western World is probably to be explained by their 
natural segregation at the center of cities, as well as by their uncer- 
tain economic and social status. 

The “black belts” of American cities have usually been located 
in or adjacent to the vice areas, while the Negroes themselves in 
face of limited occupational opportunity, have of necessity found 
work as maids and porters in the vice resorts.’ 

Vice resorts are also found in the settlements of the most recent 
foreign immigration, which must generally take over the most un- 
desirable sections of the slum in order to gain a foothold in the 
community. But commercialized vice does not invade all immi- 
grant settlements. Those like Little Italy and the Ghetto, with a 
strong family and neighborhood organization, are relatively free 
from prostitution. 

Vice is more characteristic of the cosmopolitan areas of the 
city, which represent a sediment of caught families and individuals 
from the various classes and nationalities. Since group controls in 
such regions have practically disintegrated, social life tends to be 
unregulated and often disorderly. 


°See the report of The Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago, 
PP. 342-43. 


——w————— llr —“‘iOS Eo —~— 


DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE 201 


While burlesque shows, rescue missions, crime and other major 
social problems, immigrant and racial colonies are valuable as rough 
indicators of the location and ecological setting of commercialized 

vice, the disproportion of sexes, declining population, and the cor- 
relation of high land values and low rents more nearly approximate 
indexes as used in the scientific sense; for in the first place, they 
are capable of mathematical formulation, and in the second place, 
they reveal factors and forces fundamentally related to commer- 
cialized vice in the chain of causation. 


THE DISPROPORTION OF SEXES 


The drift and gravitation of innumerable casual workers, 
tramps, hobos, bums, into the twilight zone between the central 
business district and the area of deterioration surrounding it has 
stimulated the development of so-called “‘womanless slums,” and 
consequently has created a very marked disproportion of sexes. 

The disproportion of sexes, on analysis, discloses certain con- 
ditions which underlie the very existence of commercialized vice. 
Men’s communities and “hobohemias” have ever been character- 
ized by the presence of prostitution. Westermarck has shown that 
a primitive sort of prostitution existed in Easter Island, where the 
men greatly outnumbered the women.”® Bloch, in his study of 
Die Prostitution, specifically states that the men’s communities of 
classical antiquity, namely, the university towns and the military 
camps, provided a fertile soil for the activities of prostitutes.** Ac- 
cording to Bancroft, vice ran amuck in the mining camps of Cali- 


fornia’s Gold Rush when, in 1850, the female population consti- 

* Citing Geiseler’s Die Oster-Insel (p. 29), Westermarck makes the following 
statement: “In Easter Island, where there were many more males than females, some 
of the young women remained unmarried and offered themselves up to the men,” 
History of Human Marriage, 3d ed., I, 137. 


™ See Die Prostitution, I, 252. 


202 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


tuted less than 2 per cent of the total in the mining counties.” To 
take a more recent example, attention has been called to the fact 
that commercialized vice is rampant in Pekin of the present day, 
where the male population amounts to 63.5 per cent of the total 
number of inhabitants for that city.” 

The disproportion of sexes acquires greater significance as an 
index of commercialized vice when taken in connection with mari- 
tal status. The homeless man is not merely footloose; he is usually 
unmarried. In his study of Te Hobo, Nels Anderson makes the 
following pertinent statement: 


Of the one thousand men studied by Mrs. Solenberger (1911), 74 per cent 
gave their marital status as single. Of the four hundred interviewed by the 
writer, 86 per cent stated they were unmarried. Only 8 per cent of the former, 
and 5 per cent of the latter, survey claimed they were married. The others 
claimed to be widowed, divorced, or separated from their wives.1* 


As a result of the personal disorganization incident to this detach- 
ment from family life the sex impulses seek outlets in the unap- 
proved channels, not merely in prostitution, but also in perversion. 

Furthermore, the homeless man of the city’s slums usually suf- 
fers from sex isolation, due to his great mobility, his low economic 
status, and his unpresentable appearance. About the only accessi- 
ble women are the lower order of prostitutes. The vagrant men of 
all time, because of their social-pariah existence and their resulting 
sex isolation, have of necessity subscribed to commercialized vice. 


DECLINING POPULATION 


The density of population is frequently used as a criterion to 
explain the major problems of city life. And, offhand, it would 

2 See History of California, IV, 221-39, for account of rampant vice conditions; 
pp. 221-22 for statement of disproportion of sexes in 1850. 

* Gamble, Sydney David, Pekin: A Social Survey (New York, 1921), pp. 
243-44. 

1 The Hobo, p. 137N. 


DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE = 203 


seem that this principle would apply to commercialized vice. For 
prostitution flourishes in the areas of highest density within the 
city, namely, in the slum, where there is great concentration, while 
it is conspicuously absent from decentralized neighborhoods with 
a comparatively low density. This general relationship can be 
shown by a transposition of the Committee of plat data on a 
density base map of the city. 

But there are sections of the downtown environs which are out- 
side the radial distribution of commercialized vice and yet are 
within the circle of the most thickly populated areas in the city. 
Certain immigrant colonies are cases in point. Foreign settlements 
are frequently protected against a wholesale invasion of commer- 
cialized vice not merely by virtue of their semiremote location, but 
also by a strong family and neighborhood organization. Further- 
more, on the outskirts of the city commercialized vice is very often 
lodged at roadhouses, which flourish in the most sparsely settled 
regions of the urban community. 

It is the type of community organization, rather than the den- 

sity of population, that has the direct bearing on the presence and 
distribution of vice. This is the reason why declining population, 
rather than sheer density of population, is the more satisfactory 
index, since it points to a lack or a disintegration of community 
organization, and consequently to a condition in which commer- 
cialized vice can exist best. According to maps showing the com- 
parative density of the census districts in Chicago, it was found 
that certain sections contiguous to the central business section re- 
vealed a marked decline in the number of inhabitants in 1920 as 
over against 1910.° These areas of declining population are pre- 
cisely the ones which harbor the brothels, according to the Com- 
mittee of Fifteen cases for 1922. Indeed, commercialized vice, as 


° These maps were prepared by Nels Anderson, research fellow in the Depart- 
ment of Sociology at the University of Chicago. 


204, THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


already noted, is merely one of the many symptoms of the intense 
social disorganization in these twilight neighborhoods at the core 
of the city, neighborhoods which are decaying in the inevitable 
transition from residence to business. 


THE CORRELATION OF HIGH LAND VALUES AND LOW RENT 


Indicative also of this transition and disorganization is the cor- 
relation of high land values and low rents which describes a condi- 
tion of neighborhood deterioration in the slum area about the cen- 
ter of the city. It is known that high land values appear at the traf- 
fic centers. In fact, they are a product of mobility of population, 
which in turn creates a situation of social instability and flux—a 
setting in which the pattern of vice thrives. Furthermore, commer- 
cialized vice almost inevitably develops in these areas of great mo- 
bility which, after all, become the natural market-place for thrill 
and excitement. 

The slum, which has ever sheltered the most blatant forms of 
commercialized vice, has generally been noted for its fluidity and 
kaleidoscopic life, and the high land values in this zone of deterio- 
ration certainly indicate this condition of great mobility and dis- 
organization. The land here not only has a relatively high value 
because of its centralized, and thereby accessible, location, but also 
has a speculative value, due to the approach of business itself.*° 

The improved property in these mobile, decaying neighbor- 
hoods that are in direct line of business expansion is allowed to run 
down, to deteriorate, for upkeep generally results in a total loss to 
the owner, since business only ordinarily demands the site. These 
deteriorated dwellings of the slum, because of their undesirability, 

** This condition of relatively high land values in the zone contiguous to the 


central business district may be indicated by a study of the land-value data given for 
the entire city of Chicago in Olcott’s Blue Book of City Land Values. 


— —— — 


DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIALIZED VICE 205 


can command but very low rents.” It is unavoidable that the poor 
and vicious classes share the same locality in the city’s junk heap. 

The relationship of the distribution of commercialized vice to 
neighborhood deterioration and the value of the correlation of high 
land values and low rents as an index of the vice areas may be indi- 
cated by the following statement of findings: 

By actual count in the city of Seattle over 80 per cent of the disorderly 
houses recorded in police records are obsolete buildings located near the down- 


town business section, where land values are high and new uses are in process 
of development.1§ 


It is clear that the distribution of commercialized vice in the 
city comes about through the working of factors determined by the 
economic, political, and cultural organization of the community as 
well as through the operation of forces lodged in human nature. 
The segregation of vice into characteristic urban areas is, there- 
fore, the result of a natural process of distribution rather than—as 
is so often thought—a sheer artifice of legal control. 

The propositions expounded in the foregoing analysis are not 
presented in terms of absolutes, especially in view of the fact that 
the factual material for this paper was drawn from an intensive 
study of the growth and development of vice areas in Chicago.” 
They are merely working hypotheses which invite the challenge of 
future investigation. 

™ A map based on a field study of rents in Chicago by the Illinois Bell Tele- 


phone Company in 1921 shows that just surrounding the central business district 
there is a section of low rents, the lowest in the city. 


**R. D. McKenzie, “The Ecological Approach to the Study of the Human Com- 
munity,” American Journal of Sociology, XXX (November, 1924), 299 n. 

See Walter C. Reckless, The Natural History of Vice Areas in Chicago, Uni- 
versity of Chicago, 1925 (Doctor’s dissertation). 


WALTER C. RECKLESS 
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY 


COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN CITY AND 
REGIONAL PLANNING 
RESEARCH IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 

This discussion on community participation in city and re- 
gional planning is based on the hope that if the problems and 
experience in one department of social and civic endeavor are set 
alongside those of another department some current questions of 
importance may find, if not answers, at least a little new light cast 
upon them. The first of these problems or experiences is concerned 
with the need of more research in the social sciences. A number of 
students of social and political tendencies and of public affairs dur- 
ing the last few years have been pointing to dangers due to the way 
in which the social sciences have been lagging behind the physical 
sciences. These students have observed the great advances in the 
physical sciences, both as to the broad range of activities engaged 
in and also as to the extremely rapid way in which one brilliant dis- 
covery crowds upon the stage after another. They point to the 
large number of new discoveries and inventions in transportation, 
communication, commerce, mining, and manufacturing, and show 
how most of these developments had their beginnings in the study 
and researches of men and women in such fields as chemistry, 
physics, mathematics, metallurgy, geology, and the rest. The great 
expansion of the automobile industry, to take a single instance, 
and the growth of motor transportation go back to the investiga- 
tions which made possible the gasoline engine, rubber tires, and 
the storage battery. This kind of research helps in the develop- 
ment of natural resources and material prosperity, and, as com- 
pared with research in the social sciences, has had generous sup- 
port. 


206 


COMMUNITIES AND REGIONAL PLANNING 207 


It is pointed out, however, that these advances have not been 
made without the emergence of new questions of social adjustment. 
Physical environments and social relations are changed quickly 
and people have difficulty in accommodating themselves to the new 
conditions, the results sometimes being serious. The heavy annual 
toll of deaths from automobile accidents and the still larger num- 
ber of serious injuries, not to mention the complex problems of 
street traffic congestion which have come with the motor car, are 
illustrative. It is also being suggested that certain health problems 
have at least been aggravated by the tension and strain which has 
accompanied an age where the pace set for the daily round of life 
has been considerably accelerated. 

While no one, or certainly very few, would wish to hold back 
the development of natural resources or the scientific research 
which lies behind it, it is urged that the time has come for greater 
attention to the social sciences—to research which will inquire into 
the best uses to be made of our new physical assets. More study of 
questions of social welfare is needed, not only as a means of meet- 
ing new problems and preventing the loss of ground already gained, 
but also in order to discover how-to step forward, how to make our 
growing material and physical endowment a greater advantage to 
individuals, families, and communities. 

But the line of thought is carried a step farther, and it is urged 
that even with a new fund of social information in hand the task 
faced by the community is not finished. The information needs to 
be used effectively. More must be done than heretofore in seeing 
that the new knowledge becomes widely disseminated. It must be 
made a part of the everyday experience of an ever widening circle 
of citizens in each locality if the common welfare is to be fully 
served. Although very few offer suggestions as to the methods to 
be employed in this very considerable educational task that is laid 
bare, all agree upon its importance and that it must be undertaken. 


208 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


In sum, then, an important problem in one field of work is set 
forth by thoughtful observers of the times. As they see it, the 
physical sciences which factor large in production processes are 
adding extensively to the material well-being of community life; 
the social sciences, whose function it is to give light upon methods 
of control of new forces and powers for the social well-being, are 
moving at a disproportionately slower rate; the pace of the latter 
needs to be quickened; and along with increased activity in social 
research must go greater attention to the spread of the new knowl- 
edge of social import as it is produced. 


REGIONAL PLANNING 


Turning now to a second department of work, let me call your 
attention to certain experiences which the city planning movement 
is going through, and problems faced by it. Among these is the 
considerable attention which has been given to regional planning 
in this country during the last few years. It has been seen that city 
borders or other political boundaries are often arbitrarily estab- 
lished, and that instead of defining the outer limits of districts 
which are social and economic entities these lines often cut across 
and divide these entities. The future growth and development of 
systems of transportation and communication, for example, are 
matters of common interest to the people within commuting dis- 
tance of a large population center, whether or not they live in the 
same city, county, or state. Many problems of future planning do 
not stop at the city line; and in order to deal as effectively as possi- 
ble with probable future needs in urban districts these more or less 
artificial boundaries are being disregarded, and the region, marked 
off in accordance with some major interest or function to be per- 
formed for those living within it, is being taken as the basis of 
action. 


COMMUNITIES AND REGIONAL PLANNING 209 


Among other things, this has meant a rough division of plan- 
ning questions into those on the one hand which relate to major 
elements of the design or pattern for the region’s growth, and those 
on the other hand which are entirely local or practically so. In 
other words, while regional planning means centralization in deal- 
ing with questions of common interest extending over a large area, 
it also means definite decentralization as far as questions of strictly 
local interest are concerned. It proceeds on the belief that the re- 
sponsibility for local matters should be assumed locally, and that 
it will be. It assumes further that neither the region as a whole nor 
the neighborhoods as parts can afford to ignore the mutual ties 
which unite them. They need to co-operate to the end that the plan 
for the whole, far from setting up barriers and difficulties for the 
various neighborhood entities, should conserve and promote such 
groupings, and at the same time should provide the region-wide 
services which will make the whole area a better place in which to 
work and to live. Planners are recognizing increasingly that these 
ends can only be brought about through the co-operation of the 
region-wide and the local agencies, on a basis which will recognize 
the separate and distinct responsibilities each should bear. 

Another tendency of recent city and regional planning is the 
increasing emphasis placed upon the investigation of problems and 
conditions of the given areas as a preliminary to planning. A cer- 
tain amount of investigation has practically always been carried 
on in this connection; but it seems fair to say that very few, if any, 
previous plans in this country have given as large a place to the 
investigational phase of the task as have practically all of the im- 
portant undertakings in this field during the last four or five years. 
And this has been all the more interesting because these recent 
plans have given much more attention to the study of distinctly 
social questions than was customary heretofore. While city plan- 
ning, viewed broadly, has always been aimed at the creation of an 


210 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


environment which would not only exert a corrective, but also a 
preventive, influence in dealing with causes of social wrong and 
social maladjustment, it has been realized latterly that many prob- 
lems with which the plan must deal have such important social 
phases and implications as to require special study from that angle 
as well as from the others. That is to say, city and regional plan- 
ners are seeing an increasing number of social burdens carried by 
individuals and communities toward the relieving of which better 
planning ought to be able to make a substantial contribution. 

Still another new note is the increasingly acknowledged neces- 
sity of regarding city and regional planning in very large measure 
as an educational enterprise. Such planning is aimed toward the 
improvement of community and regional conditions; but the im- 
provements will not be brought about except as residents of the 
districts are convinced of the wisdom of the measures proposed 
and are accordingly willing to get behind the plans. In few, if any, 
regions will a body be found with jurisdiction over all parts and 
power to enforce its proposals; but even if such an authority were 
to be found, its powers of effective enforcement of plans would 
after all be limited by the extent of the public opinion supporting 
them. And in the cases where no such official bodies exist, the 
chances of securing action on proposals made are even more de- 
pendent upon a public opinion convinced of their merits. And all 
this is as it should be; for it is believed that if advances—whether 
they relate to the region as a whole or only to particular neighbor- 
hoods—are to be permanent they must be grounded in popular 
understanding of their value. 


LOCAL COMMUNITY STUDIES 


The third major type of endeavor in which a new trend of in- 
terest and experience appears to be developing concerns the large 
number of neighborhood and community groups in small and large 


COMMUNITIES AND REGIONAL PLANNING ari 


_ cities that are requesting help and materials for the study of their 
own localities. These range all the way from Bible study classes 
which have become interested in social service, civic improvement 
committees in women’s clubs, and city planning committees in 
local chambers of commerce and commercial associations, to offi- 
' cial planning commissions for different localities. It is difficult to 
estimate the number of such groups in the New York region, but 
from the numerous requests for assistance which have been com- 
ing to our offices the total would seem to be large—upward of one 
hundred perhaps—and the number seems to be increasing. 

These groups, like the others, have observed changes going on 
in the communities about them, changes which have created new 
problems calling for some kind of study and analysis as a first step 
toward constructive public action. Social and civic difficulties are 
pressing for attention, there is potential and actual interest in them 
among organized groups of citizens, the necessity of inquiry into 
the essential facts with a view to increasing the public information 
is obvious, and suggestions for the local groups as to a method of 
setting to work are welcomed by them. 


THE PROJECT METHOD 


And now alongside of these three trends of experience I wish 
to suggest still another in quite a different field: the project meth- 
od, which seems gradually to be gaining acceptance in the public 
schools. This method came into existence, I am told, partly as a 
result of the failure of the older view of teaching as being “‘some- 
thing done by the teacher to the student” and partly as a result of 
new psychological knowledge of the learning process. In this it is 
made tolerably clear that we learn through experience. In the last 
analysis we educate ourselves. Books, libraries, teachers, labora- 
tories, are great aids, but they are only that: aids. Education itself 
must come through participation; we learn in the main “by doing.” 


212 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


The project method therefore seeks to find or invent situations 
in which the student may take part as realistically as if the thing 
were an event in his daily life outside the school. The teacher is on 
hand, not to instruct him what to do, but to stimulate him to a 
thorough thinking-through and evaluation of the factors to be 
taken into account in each situation. The nearer such projects can 
simulate real situations in life the greater are their educational 
possibilities and value, and thus the best teachers are those who 
can make the school itself represent a real community and find 
projects in this school community for as many classes as possible, 
from the groups studying English and mathematics to those en- 
gaged in the study of civics and government. 

From the time when Professor Langdell introduced the case 
method of teaching in the Harvard Law School to the project meth- 
od being adopted today there has been an increasing effort to use 
situations which, through study, analysis, criticism, the exercise of 
judgment, initiative, and creativeness, will prepare the student to 
deal with situations into which he will be thrust outside the school. 
From this point of view he is not educated until he is able to criti- 
cize existing social, political, and moral values as a part of the 
process of studying them and as a preparation for determining his 
own action when the time comes. 

Here, then, are four trends or types of experience. One of them 
points out the need of more social research and the effective use of 
the information so secured—this as a means of assisting citizens, 
at present and in the future, better to cope with current social 
problems and to promote the common welfare. 

A second trend shows the modern city planning movement em- 
phasizing the need of more thorough study of problems of future 
growth, and particularly of the social aspects of planning; empha- 
sizing also the necessity of taking larger units for study and plan- 
ning—regional areas of such size as will make it possible to deal 


COMMUNITIES AND REGIONAL PLANNING — 213 


with problems in their various ramifications, a movement differen- 
tiating between regional and local questions, leaving the responsi- 
bility for local studies to local groups, and concluding that regional 
and local planning will be unsuccessful unless they are treated to a 
considerable extent as educational enterprises. 

A third trend shows a growth of interest in problems of social 
welfare on the part of local groups, study clubs, civic societies, and 
committees of numerous civic and social agencies, a desire to shoul- 
der local responsibilities in connection with them; and it shows 
these groups to be civic resources as yet only partially utilized. 

A fourth trend lays emphasis on a new method of education— 
education through participation in projects as nearly real as pos- 
sible. 

Out of a consideration of these four tendencies there seems to 
me to come a clear suggestion. It is that in the project method lies 
an opportunity for securing some of that local understanding of 
the regional plan (and I am speaking generally—not of the New 
York undertaking only) which is essential to its success, an oppor- 
tunity for education through participation in the study of both 
general regional proposals and of specific local problems, and an 
opportunity to secure the criticism and suggestions of local bodies 
which will aid in the final shaping up of the most workable plan. 
That is on the one hand. On the other hand it seems to me that an 
even greater opportunity resides in these cross, or mixing, cur- 
rents: it is the chance for the regional plan to provide projects 
and project material which can do something toward increasing the 
knowledge of the present generation, and the oncoming one now in 
the public schools, regarding the social and civic questions which 
are crowding the community for attention. 

Here, in various aspects of planning, is the real thing in the 
way of situations to be studied. It is not necessary to simulate 
cases for educational purposes. The field is full of the actual, in 


ey gifs THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


the study of which very vital and absorbing interests of going com- 
munities are concerned. If this method, as would seem by its in- 
creasing adoption, is really fulfilling the promises made for it, 
should it not be seized upon by regional and city plans as an instru- 
ment for popular education on planning questions, when so favor- 
able an opportunity as those afforded by citizen groups formed for 
study and by larger school-room demands for live, current mate- 
rial are coming forward? 

I am fully aware that this would not meet all the demands for 
current social research; nor would it relieve the regional plan of 
many of its major investigational tasks, of course. On the other 
hand the plan would be amply repaid for the projects it would pro- 
vide by the specific local and regional suggestions it would receive. 
But important as that is, it would, I believe, be promoting some- 
thing still more important. It would be affording people of the 
region a means of doing their part in securing a better region and 
better communities in which to live, and it also would be helping to 
give citizens who will live in these communities a better under- 
standing of local social issues on which they will need to act. It 
ought to provide the most important textbook on civics, or rather 
the best budget of civic projects for all kinds of study, to be found 
almost anywhere. 

Indeed, something of this kind in the way of providing project 
material has been started in the New York region (and I daresay 
that I should have found illustrations in other regional plans as 
well if I had found it possible to inquire). One of the first pieces of 


printed matter issued by the Regional Plan of New York and Its" 


Environs was an outline of suggestions for men and women, not 
experts, but laymen, engaged upon the study of local plans. In set- 
ting forth the purpose of the outline it was stated that the Com- 
mittee on Regional Plan is engaged upon a long task; that it has 
already collected much statistical and other material of a kind 


COMMUNITIES AND REGIONAL PLANNING 215 


required for any logical and effective regional planning; but that 
it will be many months before the plan as a whole can be formu- 
lated, criticized, and finally submitted to the public for decision. 
Meantime it was thought that the data gathered ought to be made 
immediately useful, and as a step in the direction of co-operation 
between regional and local groups the outline of suggestions was 
offered. 

Another type of co-operation with local groups offered by the 
New York Regional Plan has been the furnishing of speakers for 
meetings in the various communities where members of organiza- 
tions were either taking their first steps to inform themselves on 
the subject of city or regional planning in general or have been dis- 
cussing specific plans or parts of plans related to their own local- 
ities. Many such meetings have been held, the character of most 
of them being more that of an open-forum discussion than of a 
session of auditors at a lecture. While speakers could not be, and 
were not, sent as substitutes for necessary professional advisors, 
the discussions have without doubt added to the local organiza- 
tion’s knowledge regarding its own planning interests and respon- 
sibilities, and have been useful as educational measures. 

Further, the Regional Plan of New York has recently started 
an experiment in one section of the region aimed to stimulate 
thought and public discussion of planning questions relating to 
that section. It has issued two brief bulletins setting forth, not par- 
ticular proposals as yet, but some considerations which are more or 
less definitely applicable to parks, boulevards, and community 
planning on Long Island. These are the first of what is to be a 
series of contributions to the discussion of Long Island’s planning 
problems. 

How much influence these efforts have had in the spread of in: 
terest in local planning throughout the region it is difficult to state, 
but it has been interesting to note for one thing that there are at 


216 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


present some forty local planning commissions in different parts of 
the New York region, a number more than twice as large as that 
when the regional enterprise was first started. 

Of use in the project method of studying local conditions is a 
system of symbols for representing social data on maps, which is 
largely the work of Ralph G. Hurlin, director of the Department of 
Statistics of the Russell Sage Foundation. It was begun some time 
ago in response to requests for some scheme which might aid the 
many who are showing social data graphically to use the same lan- 
guage, so to speak. There are more than one hundred different 
symbols in the system, and an effort has been made to choose such 
as are practically self-interpreting. 

Since work on these symbols has been begun it has become rea- 
sonably clear from conversations with teachers in the public schools 
and a few colleges that they may be used effectively in connection 
with school projects involving the study of social conditions. It is 
believed further that they have possibilities for study groups out- 
side the classroom. 

The possibilities which lie in this situation are illustrated in a 
story related by Angelo Patri, of a boy of nine who came to this 
country from Sicily some years ago. The steamer which brought 
him came up the New York harbor on a crisp sunny February 
morning, and the boy was out on deck eager to catch sight of the 
land which had been pictured to him as the land of freedom, of op- 
portunity, and of encouragement. The steamer came on until the 
tall buildings looming up at the southern end of Manhattan could 
be seen, and then his excitement knew no bounds. He saw flags 
fluttering everywhere and, not knowing that it was Lincoln’s birth- 
day, he thought they were out to welcome him. 

A few days later found him in a crowded East Side tene- 
ment and with all his excitement over. He had started to school. 
Cramped and dismal home surroundings, together with language 


COMMUNITIES AND REGIONAL PLANNING 217 


difficulties in the classroom, had made his disillusionment complete. 
But one day he took a piece of hand-carved wood—his own work— 
to show to his teacher. The teacher at once saw signs of real talent 
in it, and she got him transferred to Mr. Patri’s school in another 
part of the city. Mr. Patri seemed to understand him at once, and 
put him to work under the direction of a sculptor. By the time the 
boy had finished high school he had won distinction as an artist, 
and later won a prize which provided for several years of study in 
his chosen field in Rome. 

The day before he sailed to take up his further studies he went 
to take his leave of Mr. Patri. Their conversation went back to the 
boy’s early experiences in America, and a new thought seemed to 
strike him, which ended with the remark: ‘Do you know, those 
flags really were out for me, after all! I got the kind of a welcome 
in America that Abraham Lincoln would have had me get.” 

I have sometimes wondered in this connection whether the 
project method, which seems to have been utilized to such great 
advantage in some departments and by which this boy seems to 
have greatly benefited, does not offer more than we may yet sus- 
pect in educating the present and oncoming generation for a fuller 
participation not only in city and regional planning but in the so- 
cial, civic, and political life of our communities in general. There 
is a possible project field for almost every type of talent, from that 
possessed by the person whose ability might not go beyond indicat- 
ing on a map the social and civic institutions of the community to 
the statistician who can handle the processes in higher mathematics 
involved in pursuing modern methods of predicting population 
growth. If we gave the suggestion a real trial, who knows but that 
we might not only discover an occasional genius in social and polit- 
ical science, with possibilities of great service in leadership, but 
we might also discover a way of greatly increasing the number of 


218 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


informed persons in the community on whom ultimately decisions 
must rest regarding grave matters of public policy. 

In so far as their information bears on city and regional plan- 
ning, we would have greater assurance of better ultimate plans, 
whether they happen to be our plans or those of someone else; and, 
what perhaps is still more important, a great many more people 
might be enabled to live fuller lives by finding a way by which they 
might make their contribution to the welfare of the community. 


SHELBY M. HARRISON 
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 


THE NATURAL AREAS OF THE CITY 


THE CITY AS ARTIFACT AND AS NATURAL PHENOMENON 


To the philosophically minded the city has often seemed to be 
the most colossal artifact of man’s creation. The towering sky- 
scrapers of a New York or a Chicago, palatial banking houses, the 
frenzied stock exchange, a Fifth or a Michigan Avenue with its 
ceaseless stream of automobiles and busses, its smart shops, and 
its brilliant hotels, underground tubes with roaring trains, or ele- 
vated railroads clattering overhead, great belts of smoking indus- 
tries,miles of canyon-like streets flanked with tall apartments, mag- 
nificent park and boulevard systems, water works besides which 
the Roman aqueducts fall into insignificance—all in all the city 
seems the most exotic and artificial flower of a man-made civiliza- 
tion, a product not alone of man’s brawn, but of man’s brain and 
man’s will. 

Yet the city is curiously resistant to the fiats of man. Like the 
Robot, created by man, it goes its own way indifferent to the will of 
its creator. Reformers have stormed, the avaricious have specu- 
lated, and thoughtful men have planned. But again and again their 
programs have met with obstacles. Human nature offers some op- 
position; traditions and institutions offer more; and—of especial 
significance—the very physical configuration of the city is unyield- 
ing to change. It becomes apparent that the city has a natural or- 
ganization that must be taken into account. 

In the latter part of the past century and the early years of this 
present century a tidal wave of reform swept over the city, culmi- 
nating in the ‘““Man with the Muckrake” and the “Yellow Press.” 
Jacob Riis painted the descent into the slum. Parkhurst crusaded 
against vice in New York; and Stead, in Jf Christ Came to Chi- 


210 


220 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


cago, lashed the lords of Customs House Place. Ida M. Tarbell 
and Upton Sinclair took the muckrake into industry, while Lincoln 
Steffens laid bare the rotten spots in city government. There was a 
tremendous stir, public interest was aroused, reforms were pro- 
posed, but little happened. Practically all these movements for 
social reform met with unexpected obstacles: influential persons, 
“bosses,” ‘union leaders,” ‘local magnates,” and powerful groups 
such as party organizations, ‘‘vested interests,” “lobbies,” unions, 
manufacturers’ associations, and the like. Candid recognition of 
the role of these persons and groups led writers on social, political, 
and economic questions to give them the impersonal designation of 
“social forces.” 

The concept of social forces was a common-sense generaliza- 
tion. But implicit in Steffen’s book, The Shame of the Cities, was a 
far more sophisticated insight. Steffens maintained that with his 
knowledge of New York he could go into any city and quickly 
gauge conditions; that conditions in New York were not due to a 
failure of institutions peculiar to itself, but to a condition incident 
to the growth of all cities. This was the first recognition of the fact 
that the city is a natural phenomenon and has a natural history. 

Meantime, realtors, public utilities, city-planning and zoning 
commissions, and others interested in predicting the future of the 
city were discovering much about the way in which the city grows. 
Richard Hurd, in a small volume, The Principles of City Land 
Values, attempting to generalize fluctuations of city land values, 
formulated certain typical processes of the city’s growth. Most in- 
structive are the more recent statistical studies of the American 
Bell Telephone Company and other utilities for the purposes of ex- 
tension in anticipation of future service. The city is discovered to 
be an organization displaying certain typical processes of growth. 
Knowledge of these processes makes possible prediction of the di- 


THE NATURAL AREAS OF THE CITIES 221 


rection, rate, and nature of its growth. That is, the city is found to 
be not an artifact but a natural phenomenon. 


A HUMAN ECOLOGY 


In an address in 1922, before the meeting at which the Russell 
Sage Foundation’s proposal for a regional plan for metropolitan 
New York was first outlined, Elihu Root recognized this fact of the 
natural organization of the city when he said: ‘A city is a growth. 
It is not the result of political decrees or control. You may draw 
all the lines you please between counties and states; a city is a 
growth responding to forces not at all political, quite disregarding 
political lines. It is a growth like that of a crystal responding to 
forces inherent in the atoms that make it up.” In the three years 
that have elapsed since Elihu Root wrote these words, a mass of 
material about the city has been gathered and analyzed that ena- 
bles us to describe these ‘‘atoms”’ to which he referred. 

Studies of the expansion of the city have shown that all Amer- 
ican cities exhibit certain typical processes in their growth.* To 
begin with, they segregate into broad zones as they expand radially 
from the center—a “loop,” or central business district, a zone of 
transition between business and resident; an invasion by business 
and light manufacturing, involving physical deterioration and so- 
cial disorganization; a zone of working men’s homes, cut through 
by rooming-house districts along.focal lines of transportation; a 
zone of apartments and “restricted” districts of single family dwell- 
ings; and, farther out, beyond city limits, a commuters’ zone of 
suburban areas. Ideally, this gross segregation may be represented 
by a series of concentric circles, and such tends to be the actual 
fact where there are no complicating geographical factors. 

Such is a generalized description of the gross anatomy of the 


*E. W. Burgess, “The Growth of the City—An Introduction to a Research 
Project” in The City, by Robert E. Park et al., pp. 50 ff. 


222 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


city—the typical structure of a modern American commercial and 
industrial city. Of course, no city quite conforms to this ideal 
scheme. Physical barriers such as rivers, lakes, and rises of land 
may modify the growth and structure of the individual city, as is 
strikingly demonstrated in the cases of New York, Pittsburgh, and 
Seattle. Railroads, with their belts of industry, cut through this 
generalized scheme, breaking the city up into sections; and lines of 
local transportation, along the more travelled of which grow up 
retail business streets, further modify the structure of the city. 

The structure of the individual city, then, while always exhib- 
iting the generalized zones described above, is built about this 
framework of transportation, business organization and industry, 
park and boulevard systems, and topographical features. All of 
these break the city up into numerous smaller areas, which we may 
call natural areas, in that they are the unplanned, natural product 
of the city’s growth. Railroad and industrial belts, park and boule- 
vard systems, rivers and rises of land acting as barriers to move- 
ments of population tend to fix the boundaries of these natural 
areas, while their centers are usually intersections of two or more 
business streets. By virtue of proximity to industry, business, 
transportation, or natural advantages each area acquires a physical 
individuality accurately reflected in land values and rents. 

Now, in the intimate economic relationships in which all people 
are in the city everyone is, in a sense, in competition with everyone 
else. It is an impersonal competition—the individual does not 
know his competitors. It is a competition for other values in addi- 
tion to those represented by money. One of the forms it takes is 
competition for position in the community. We do not know all the 
factors involved, but each individual influences the ultimate posi- 
tion of every other individual. 

In this competition for position the population is segregated 
over the natural areas of the city. Land values, characterizing the 


THE NATURAL AREAS OF THE CITIES 223 


various natural areas, tend to sift and sort the population. At the 
same time segregation re-emphasizes trends in values.’ Cultural 
factors also play a part in this segregation, creating repulsions and 
attractions. From the mobile competing stream of the city’s popu- 
lation each natural area of the city tends to collect the particular 
individuals predestined to it. These individuals, in turn, give to the 
area a peculiar character. And as a result of this segregation, the 
natural areas of the city tend to become distinct cultural areas as 
well—a “black belt” or a Harlem, a Little Italy, a Chinatown, a 
“stem” of the “hobo,” a rooming-house world, a “Towertown,” or 
a “Greenwich Village,” a “Gold Coast,” and the like—each with 
its characteristic complex of institutions, customs, beliefs, stand- 
ards of life, traditions, attitudes, sentiments, and interests. The 
physical individuality of the natural areas of the city is re-empha- 
sized by the cultural individuality of the populations segregated 
over them. Natural areas and natural cultural groups tend to coin- 
cide. 

A natural area is a geographical area characterized both by a 
physical individuality and by the cultural characteristics of the 
people who live in it. Studies in various cities have shown, to quote 
Robert E. Park, that “every American city of a given size tends to 
reproduce all the typical areas of all the cities, and that the people 
in these areas exhibit, from city to city, the same cultural charac- 
teristics, the same types of institutions, the same social types, with 
the same opinions, interests, and outlook on life.” That is, just as 
there is a plant ecology whereby, in the struggle for existence, like 
geographical regions become associated with like “communities” 
of plants, mutually adapted, and adapted to the area, so there isa 

2 The nature of “value” in city land is a more complex problem than the aver- 
age text on economics admits. Other cultural factors so condition the economic as 


to make the process of “value”—for it is a process—one difficult to analyze and 
state in abstract terms as it applies to city land. 


224 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


human ecology whereby, in the competition of the city and accord- 
ing to definable processes, the population of the city is segregated 
over natural areas into natural groups. And these natural areas 
and natural groups are the “‘atoms”’ of city growth, the units we try 
to control in administering and planning for the city. 


ADMINISTRATIVE AREA AND NATURAL AREA 


The distinction between the natural area and the administra- 
tive area is apparent. The city is broken up into administrative 
units, such as the ward, the school district, the police precinct, and 
the health district, for the purposes of administrative convenience. 
The object is usually to apportion either the population or area of 
the city into equal units. The natural area, on the other hand, is a 
unit in the physical structure of the city, typified by a physical in- 
dividuality and the characteristic attitudes, sentiments, and inter- 
ests of the people segregated within it. Administrative areas and 
natural areas may coincide. In practice they rarely do. Admin- 
istrative lines cut across the boundaries of natural areas, ignoring 
their existence. 

The contrast between administrative and natural areas is not 
new. Historians long ago pointed out the international complica- 
tions that have arisen because state lines were not drawn with ref- 
erence to natural groupings of population and natural geographical 
units. A historian in a recent volume devotes a chapter to “Natural 
Areas and Boundaries.” The geographer talks of production in 
terms of natural “regions.” Gras, in his Introduction to Economic 
History, reminds us that a stable banking system must be based, 
not on units of administrative convenience, but upon the basis of 
natural “metropolitan” areas of financial service. We are just be- 
ginning, however, to take account of the natural areas of the city. 

Students of municipal affairs are coming to appreciate the rela- 
tionship of the cultural individuality of the natural areas of the 


THE NATURAL AREAS OF THE CITY 225 


city to the problem of city government. For one thing, the theory 
and practice of American municipal government, evolved to meet 
the needs of village communities, makes no allowance for the exist- 
ence of distinct areas within the city, each with an individuality, 
and unequally adapted to function politically under our present 
system. On the Lower North Side of Chicago, for example, is a 
rooming-house area affording dormitories to 25,000 people. This 
population is exceedingly mobile. It turns over every four months. 
There are no permanent contacts in such an area. No one knows 
anyone else. There are no permanent interests in the area, and no 
public opinion. The population are not “citizens” of the locality. 
There are few votes, and many of these are sold. Local self-gov- 
ernment is a myth. The area is administered by the social agencies 
and the police, though this fact is but imperfectly recognized by 
these agencies. The situation should be frankly faced. Such an 
area should be disfranchized and administered from the city hall. 


Natural areas are unequally adapted to function politically under 


our present system of municipal government. 

Again, administrative units cut across natural areas. Ward 
lines divide a “Little Sicily,” or ward lines encompass a number of 
natural areas and natural groups. As a result, the ward vote fre- 
quently represents a stalemate among conflicting natural areas; 
and large parts of the city are politically impotent. The real issues 
of the areas that make up the city rarely get into politics; munici- 
pal government becomes a concession, a state of affairs that is rap- 
idly assuming the proportion of a national scandal. One remedy 
would seem to be the political recognition of the natural areas of 
the city, and at least a geographical pluralism in city government. 

There have been numerous extra-political attempts to solve 
the problems of local self-government in the city. Among these is 
the community organization movement. Looking to the village as 
a “golden age” of social life, and believing that if the neighborli- 


226 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


ness of the village could be restored in the city the city’s problems 
would take care of themselves, the community organizers have set 
out to make “villages” of areas within the city. But in selecting 
the areas for the experiments they have usually but substituted 
one administrative area for another, totally oblivious of the exist- 
ence and significance of natural areas and natural groups. The 
Lower North Community Council of Chicago set out to make a 
“community” of a section of the city including a colony of 15,000 
Sicilians, a colony of 6,000 Persians, a belt of some 4,000 Ne- 
groes, a colony of 1,000 Greeks, a rooming-house population of 
25,000 “Towertown’—Chicago’s Greenwich village—and Chi- 
cago’s much-vaunted ‘“‘Gold Coast.” 

A further complicating factor is introduced by the fact that 
the natural areas of a city are only relatively stable, either in re- 
spect to values or in respect to the cultural segregation upon them. 
Particularly is this true in a new or growing city. In older cities 
residence is more permanent; a historical sentiment enters in to 
stabilize residence, inclining people to cling to the old community. 
And in a city that is not growing competition for position tends to 
cease and values and groupings of the population to reach an 
equilibrium. But in the growing city, expanding as it grows, nat- 
ural areas are only relatively stable. They seem to change in a 
predictable manner, a succession like that observable in plant com- 
munities. The laws of this succession are imperfectly known, how- 
ever. One of the purposes of the studies of the Community Re- 
search Fund of the University of Chicago has been to analyze this 
succession. Chicago’s “Gold Coast,” again, offers an interesting ex- 
ample of succession in process. As more and more of Chicago’s 
industrial kings achieve incomes worthy of evasion of the gov- 
ernment tax, they crowd in upon the “Gold Coast.” Chicago’s 
first families find themselves increasingly aliens in their own land. 
And we view the spectacle, not without its pathos, of the perambu- ~ 


THE NATURAL AREAS OF THE CITY 2247 


lators of the leaders of future assemblies disappearing from the 


_ Esplanade to reappear along Sheridan Road. 


These ecological facts—natural areas within the city, compe- 
tition for position, segregation over natural areas, succession—are 
facts that must be taken into account by those who would control 
the city’s growth as well as by those who would administer the 
city’s government. We are interested here not in cities planned 
from their origin—though there seems to be limits to what can be 
done in such instances. Berlin, for example, like Amsterdam and 
many other European cities, has grown since the time when it was 
a small city according to a carefully directed plan. The scheme is 
not called zoning in Berlin, but there is a city architect and every- 
thing is planned in advance. The city is solidly built; there are no 
vacant spaces that may serve as speculative holdings. There is 


_ absolute standardization of buildings—squares, fountains, apothe- 


caries’ shops are located in advance. Houses have shops on the 
first floor, with the rooms of the tradesmen in the rear. The well- 
to-do have the apartments above, facing the street. The lower mid- 
dle class have the back apartments. All classes are represented in 
a block. It is known how many people will be in each block, and 
what shops will be needed. Yet with all this careful planning Ber- 
lin has gotten out of bounds. The wealthy want to live on the parks 
and boulevards. They get located on certain streets. These streets 
acquire reputation and prestige, become distinctive regions not 
called for in the city plan. Values rise. Speculation goes on. The 
city gets out of control. Especially is this true since the war, with 
its sudden turnover of fortunes and breaking down of class distinc- 
tions. 

The experience of the Chicago Zoning Commission affords an 
interesting example of an attempt to control the growth of a new, 
rapidly growing, unplanned city. The Chicago zoning ordinance 
has been approximately two years in operation. Mr. H. J. Frost, 


228 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


formerly of the engineering staff which gathered the data on which 
the ordinance is based, and now of the board of appeals, has kind- 
ly given me data on the Chicago situation. His data would seem 
to indicate that it is futile to impose a plan upon a city which in- 
volves the attempt to control land values and the natural groupings 
of the population. Where use districts cut across natural areas of 


the city there is a constant pressure upon the board of appeals, 


which invariably necessitates revision. That is, use districts are 
merely another form of administrative area where they ignore nat- 
ural areas. In attempting to control a city’s growth we are not 
merely rearranging our “blocks,” refashioning an artifact, but are 
working with a natural organization and natural groupings within 
that organization. The ordinance can neither control this organ- 
ization of the city nor the inevitable succession of the city. It can, 
however, taking this organization and succession into account, 
stabilize the processes of city growth and prevent the waste in- 
volved in scattering and uncontrolled speculation. 


Whatever we may think such evidence indicates, certainly it | 
is apparent that city planning and zoning, which attempt to con- — 
trol the growth of the city, can only be economical and successfui — 


where they recognize the natural organization of the city, the nat- 


ural groupings of the city’s population, the natural processes of the 
city’s growth. An ideal city is not likely to be the mold of a real © 


city. 


NATURAL AREAS AND A SIGNIFICANT STATISTICS 


One of our crying needs in planning for and administering the — 


city is a significant statistics of city life. But statistics, to be sig- 


nificant, must be based not only upon accurately defined and com- — 


parable units but upon units that are actual factors in the process 
under examination. Our statistics of city life are based, at the pres- 


ent time, upon administrative areas, which have no real corre- — 


THE NATURAL AREAS OF THE CITY 229 


spondence with the natural areas of the city. Consequently, our 
statistics are of little significance for the problems of city life. 
Mowrer, in his recent study of family disorganization in Chicago, 
found that statistics of family disorganization meant nothing until 
they were prepared for natural areas. Similarly, Shaw, studying 
the problem of juvenile delinquency, found that statistics, reveal- 
ing when compiled for the natural areas of the city, meant nothing 
when compiled for wards. 

The natural areas of the city are real units. They can be accu- 
rately defined. Facts that have a position and can be plotted serve 
to characterize them. Within the areas we can study the subtler 
phases of city life—politics, opinion, cultural conflicts, and all 
social attitudes. As this data accumulates it becomes possible to 
compare, check, and fund out knowledge. With natural areas de- 
fined, with the processes going on within them analyzed, statistics 
based upon natural areas should prove diagnostic of real situations 
and processes, indicative of real trends. It is not improbable that 
statistical ratios might be worked out which would afford a basis 
for prediction beyond the mere agglomeration of population, mak- 
ing it possible to apply numerical measurement to that collective 
human behavior in the urban environment which is the growth of 
the city. 

HARVEY W. ZORBAUGH 

Onto WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 


V 
TYPICAL STUDIES IN URBAN SOCIOLOGY 


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THE CITY AS A COMMUNITY: AN INTRODUCTION TO A 
RESEARCH PROJECT 


If it is true that the city is the most characteristic phenomenon of modern 
life it is because in the city the outstanding forces of present-day society are 
working out their logical consequences in more complete form than elsewhere. 
Here the operations of capitalism, mobility of population, democracy, individu- 
alism, and group action are all found in full swing. And here are displayed their 
end results in the extremes of luxury and poverty, of civic virtue and crime, of 
stable social organization and appalling disorganization. 

Whether or not the city is a community is, obviously, largely a matter of 
how we define a community. And this seems to be a matter over which there 
is the usual difficulty which appears when we undertake to give definite scien- 
tific meaning to a term of popular usage. There is, however, in all the connota- 
tions of the term “community,” both popular and scientific, the fundamental 
notion of a group of people inhabiting a prescribed geographical area who have 
a considerable degree of unity in meeting the more important concerns of life. 

The chief reason for casting the modern large city outside the community 
fold is that many observers have been more impressed with the evidences of 
absence of unity in the city than with the signs of its presence. There can be 
no gainsaying the evidences of disorganization in the modern great city. Na- 
tional and racial groups gathered from the four quarters of the globe here live 
in close physical proximity, but with little similarity of tastes or habit or lan- 
guage and little sympathy for, or understanding of, one another. Varieties of 
religious groups either spend much of their energies in attempting to neutralize 
the efforts of one another or go their respective ways with indifference and 
mutual disdain. Warring economic groups, through violent conflict or long- 
continued competition, wear out one another’s resources and at the same time 
deny their constituents the convenience or utility of their needed services. Op- 
posing ethical standards divide the city into warring factions concerning law 
enforcement, Sunday observance, race-track gambling. It is not strange that 
the spectacle of such a discordant medley of hundreds of thousands of individu- 
als without any personal relations except in small selective groups should im- 
press many observers with the lack of any essential unity that might be de- 


233 


234 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


scribed as communal. Professor Sanderson, for example, says that the large 
metropolitan city “is a mere aggregation of people living together under a city 
government.”+ 

Such a point of view, however, fails to take account of certain aspects of 
social unity that are exceedingly significant for modern society. To think of 
group unity as confined exclusively to situations where simple, face-to-face rela- 
tions prevail is to neglect some of the most important phases of the present 
social order. Professor Snedden has well pointed out the highly co-operative 
nature of much of our mechanized impersonal relations.2 Mail delivery, road- 
building, protection from internal and external enemies, are now carried on in 
a highly impersonal manner devoid of conscious co-operation, but would not be 
possible if there did not exist a very vital co-operative relationship between the 
citizens of the nation as well as between states and local groups. 

There are several distinctive marks of all modern local groups that should 
be recognized as applying to cities as well as to rural groups. First, the locality 
is decreasingly self-sufficient. Government, economic organization, and cultural 
organization, all are developed on national, or in some cases on world, lines. 
The citizen of the local group is also a citizen of the state and of the nation, and 
he consequently relies on these outside agencies for a part of his life-needs. 
The economic life of the locality practically always reflects the economic condi- 
tions of the nation and, largely, of the civilized world. Hence the economic in- 
terests of the citizen look far beyond the boundaries of his city. His religion, 
his intellectual life, and practically all other aspects of his culture are fed by 
many streams whose sources are far beyond the confine of his locality. The 
modern local group, whether small rural community or metropolitan area, can 
in no sense satisfy the life-needs or claim the exclusive loyalty of its members. 

In the second place all modern society is highly individualistic as com- 
pared with primitive society. That is, much larger place is given for variety of 
taste and habit and belief. No dead level of uniformity is pressed down on the 
lives of its members by any modern social group. Specialization and division 
of labor have been accompanied by differentiation of thought and interest. This 
means that the unity that exists within any modern group must be an organic 
unity, a functional cohesion of unlike parts, whether we have in mind economic 
organization, political organization, or culture. As Professor Cooley has well 


* Publications of the American Sociological Society, X1V, 85. 
* American Journal of Sociology, XXVIII. 681 ff. 


THE CITY AS A COMMUNITY 235 


shown, the unity of opinion or thought or belief, in a modern group, is a unity 
that permeates many differences.’ 

In the next place, since the areas over which contacts take place are large, 
and since our unity is a functional cohesion of unlike parts instead of one of 
uniformity, the greater part of the relations maintained in modern society are 
impersonal. Our cultural contacts are through books and magazines and news- 
papers, and we have no fellowship of the personal sort with thousands who are 
daily helping to mold our thoughts and shape our personalities. We have very 
significant business relations with the tea-growers of China, the coffee-growers 
of Brazil, the diamond-miners of South Africa. The farmer of Montana has 
definite business relations with the banker of New York. But all this is so 
mechanized and carried on through such tortuous channels that the personal 
element has no place in it. 

Now, the reason the city is looked upon as a confused mass of people 
without essential social unity is because in it these characteristics of modern 
society are seen in their most typical form. The citizens of the city are not 
bound together by any unique loyalty to a self-sufficient locality. They are 
highly diverse in their culture and in their interests. Their co-operative rela- 
tions, except in small selective groups, are highly mechanical and impersonal. 
But we cannot deny that there is in the city an essential unity. The economic 
interdependence of city dwellers is certainly greater than is found in the rural 
community. In the maintenance of the public schools and all the departments 
of the city government we see a group of common objectives and essentially 
co-operative activity. The like response to intellectual and emotional stimuli is 
frequently much more marked over the whole metropolitan area than it is 
within the rural community. 

The question may now be raised, Is a city a community in any sense in 
which a state or the nation is not one? Do not practically all modern political 
or locality groups have the sort of unity which we are claiming for the city? 
The essential difference lies in the number of the interests of the population 
which have been reduced to a co-operative basis, and in the degree to which the 
co-operative process is complete. Thus, if we compare the city with the state 
we find that the urban population is co-operating in many more things than are 
the citizens of the state. The functions of city government, for example, are 
much more numerous than those of the state. And governmental activities are 
not the only field in which the comparison is to be made. In intellectual and 


* Cooley, Social Organization, pp. 121-28. 


236 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


aesthetic pursuits, in religion, in voluntary civic and philanthropic activities, in 
business and industrial affairs it cannot be doubted that a larger number of 
co-operative projects is carried on by the urban population than by the state 
or nation. 

When we compare the degree to which the co-operative process is com- 
plete in the city with the degree attained in the functions of the state or of the 
national group we find the same difference. For example, the co-operative proc- 
ess with respect to the schools is much more complete in the school district 
than in the state or nation, as are also the local public-health functions as com- 
pared with those of the state and nation. 

There are undoubtedly striking differences between cities in these respects, 
as also between rural communities. These comparisons suggest that we may 
have here a measure of the communal process. All locality groups have a cer- 
tain degree of communal process. That is, all have a number of co-operative 
activities, each of which has attained a certain degree of co-operative com- 
pleteness. But the number and the degree vary greatly. Instead, therefore, 
of attempting to answer the question whether this or that locality group con- 
stitutes a community, we have to determine the extent to which the group is 
communal, and we have, as means of determining this extent, these objective 
units of measurement. The adoption of such an objective measure of com- 
munal unity frees us from much of the metaphysical character that has perme- 
ated our discussion of the community during the past decade. It also eliminates 
the futile search for the answer as to just what types of locality group are en- 
titled to the designation of community. Any locality group may properly be 
called a community, or at least a potential community, but the degree to which 
it has attained the communal character is a matter of quantity and subject to 
measurement. 

We may, in fact, isolate any particular phase of a city’s life and under- 
take to study the degree to which it has attained a communal character. It 
rarely is the case that the same degree of progress has been attained in this re- 
spect in all the different aspects of the life of the city. Within recent years the 
community movement has been expressed in a number of separate efforts in 
American cities. The chamber of commerce movement is an attempt on the 
part of the mercantile and the employing interests to strengthen their position 
through co-operative effort. The Protestant churches have undertaken a simi- 
lar project in the church federation movement. The organized labor interests 
have created the local trades council. The women’s club movement has achieved 
city federations of clubs. Within the same city considerable progress may 


THE CITY AS A COMMUNITY 237 


have been made toward realizing a business community or a religious com- 
munity, while other aspects of the city life are still highly unco-operative. 

The project in which I am engaged is a study of the community move- 
ment among the welfare activities of American cities. One question to be an- 
swered by such a study is, to what extent are American cities becoming com- 
munal in the development of those activities pertaining to the physical and 
moral well-being of the population? It seems apparent that this can be meas- 
ured by determining the number of these activities that are being put upon a 
co-operative basis and the extent to which this co-operation is effective. Such 
a study should reveal, with respect to any particular city, the extent to which 
it has become a community in its welfare activities, and, with respect to the 
national life, what the tendency is in this field. 


CreciLt C. NortTH 
Oxto STATE UNIVERSITY 


THE LOCAL COMMUNITY AS A UNIT IN THE PLANNING OF 
URBAN RESIDENTIAL AREAS 


The occasion for this study was the request, by the Committee on the Re- 
gional Plan of New York and Its Environs, for a formula covering the desira- 
ble distribution of neighborhood playgrounds. Proper provision for children’s 
play means, however, much more than the accessibility gained by adequate 
distribution of play spaces. Children must be protected from dangerous traffic 
while traveling to the playground, and a certain degree of racial and social 
homogeneity must be assured among playground patrons or healthy play-life — 
will not occur. Our problem, therefore, became an inquiry as to what arrange- 
ment of streets, open spaces, and public sites would best serve and promote a 
normal neighborhood life. 

What does, or should, a neighborhood do for a citizen other than is done — 
for him by the city as a whole? Our study and analysis lead us to these conclu- 
sions: The functions peculiar to a city neighborhood, the things whose absence 
make a neighborhood a less satisfying environment for family life, are these: 
(1) To give an aesthetic satisfaction, such as is afforded by the character of 
construction—shrubbery, lawns, state of street—all the things in the proximity 
of a home which give pleasure or the absence of which arouses disgust; (2) to 
afford safe access to an elementary school; (3) to provide safe access to con- 
genial play spaces; and (4) to afford easy access to certain small stores and 
shops. 

What changes in street net and open spaces should be made specially for 
these four aspects of local community life? To determine these we must con- 
sider the physical and spatial requirements of our four functions. The satis- 
faction flowing from residential characteristics will be considered last because 
it is affected by the other three. | 

1. Schools.—According to Strayer and Engelhardt, an elementary public 
school should be provided for every thousand or twelve hundred children of 
school age, or, in a normal population distribution, for approximately every 
five thousand or six thousand people. The maximum travel distance for the 
pupil should not exceed one-half mile. In a one-family-house district, where 
each lot takes about 5,000 square feet (100 feet by 50 feet) with 30 per cent of 
the area set aside for streets, a population of 5,000 people requires approxi- 


238 


LOCAL COMMUNITY AND RESIDENTIAL AREAS 239 


mately 160 acres. In the form of a square that area is one-half mile by one- 
half mile. A school located in the center of such a district would be so situated 
that no pupil would have to travel as much as one-half mile. If the district 
were triangular, a half-mile radius would still cover it. Thus 160 acres of one- 
family houses would ordinarily make a model school district. In proportion as 
density increases this area can diminish. 

So much for size. The next requirement dictated by school considerations 
is that no pupil should have to cross an arterial street to reach the school. In 
New York City the automobile has been killing children at the rate of nearly 
one a day. The remedy is obviously a district protected from through traffic. 
The best solution seems to be to use arterial streets as the boundaries of the 
neighborhood district. Make these streets direct, make them wide, but lay 
them down so that they demarcate, instead of bisect or cut up, neighborhood 
districts. We come thus to the concept of a cell in the street system, bounded 
by arterial highways and containing a school district within it. Obviously such 
an arrangement can be provided only at the time the street net is laid down. 

2. Playgrounds.—Recreational surveys show that small children will not 
ordinarily travel more than one-quarter mile to use a playground. If it is more 
distant they stay away from it. A good school yard in the center of 160 acres 
affords a public play space that is within a quarter of a mile of most of the 
families. There should be, however, more than one playground in a neighbor- 
hood; with two such areas the distance requirements would be nicely met for 
all the residents of the district. 

Children on the way to play need the same protection from through traffic 
as pupils attending school, so that a district walled in by arterial streets is also 
required from the standpoint of good neighborhood recreational service. 

3. Shops.—City planners consider that one-half mile is the maximum dis- 
tance which people should have to travel to find a neighborhood store. If it 
were two blocks it would be better. At the same time residents do not want 
shops so close that they lower the residential character of the space immedi- 
ately adjacent to their homes. From time immemorial trading centers have 
arisen at the junctions of traffic highways. Since our neighborhood district, as 
thus far laid out, is bounded by thoroughfare streets, the logical and convenient 
places for shops are on its periphery, at the corners, merging with the business 
areas of adjoining districts. 

4. Residential characteristics —Of course most of the satisfaction arising 
from a home environment is in the hands of the architect, the landscape artist, 
the builder, and the subdivider. But the city planner can also help. Take our 
walled neighborhood district. Suppose it could have a special street system of 


240 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


its own, converging upon a green in its center, with the public school on one 
side, a couple of churches and a little theater filling in the other sides, the whole 
civic center planned and laid out artistically—would not such a neighborhood 
afford distinction and the finer kind of satisfactions to all its residents? 

A neighborhood district walled in with highways and provided with its own 
special street system would in itself be the physical stimulus for a definite local 
community consciousness. The relation of such a psychical state to residential 
characteristics is very real. The architect and real estate subdivider may sell 
you a home and a charming environment. But you can preserve those resi- 
dential characteristics after the real estate corporation has gone only by com- 
bining with your neighbors for that purpose. The municipality will not do it 
for you. Experience shows that whether or not a local taxpayer’s association 
will arise and function depends upon certain physical conditions. The area 
within which the possible members live must not be too large, and it must be 
visibly demarcated. Before the leaders of any movement can issue a call to a 
meeting they must determine whom to invite. Unless the precise area of the 
common interest seems obvious no movement will start. Thus the arterial high- 
way boundaries of the neighborhood district play a real part in stimulating and 
making association possible. 

Our study has led, then, to the conception of a specialized neighborhood 
district plan. We think of it as a rather elastic pattern which might serve as a 
unit of design in laying out the residential sections of new urban extensions. In 
population and shape this neighborhood unit is the best school district—what- 
ever educational authorities say that is. It has school and institutional sites in © 
the center and shopping districts at the corners. It is bounded and walled in 
with traffic highways or non-residential areas, and has within its limits a special 
street system which favors direct circulation for those living within the unit 
and the by-passing of it by travelers having no business with its residents. 
Within such a district there would be small parks and open spaces suited to 
neighborhood use; ideally, ro per cent of the total area would be thus allocated. 
Given a layout embodying these principles, we believe that an environment is 
provided which meets the peculiar needs of local community life. 

Observation of current real estate tendencies leads us to believe that the © 
commercial effort to satisfy the demand for harmonious and pleasing residen- 
tial environments will of itself bring about the development of neighborhood ~ 
districts similar in many ways to the pattern we have outlined. This movement 
can be aided, however, by the establishment of municipal planning boards and 
by legislation which gives a premium to comprehensive planning and develop- 


LOCAL COMMUNITY AND RESIDENTIAL AREAS 241 


ment. Socially, the result of the movement will be the reappearance of the 
local community, differing from the village prototype in the absence of the oc- 
cupational basis. The new grouping will show greater cultural and economic 
homogeneity since it will largely result from the conscious choice of homes on 
the basis of similar standards and similar means. 


CLARENCE ARTHUR PERRY 
RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 


THE RESEARCH RESOURCES OF A TYPICAL AMERICAN CITY 
AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE CITY OF BUFFALO? 


As a member of the University of Buffalo Committee on Economic and 
Social Research the writer has, during the past year, made a reconnaissance of 
the research resources of the Buffalo area. The material uncovered may serve 
as a typical survey of the research data available in the average American city 
concerning demographical factors, including vital statistics, ecological and eco- 
nomic factors, pathological factors, and miscellaneous factors. 

Demography and vital statistics have for their major source of data the 
United States Census, whose decennial publications tabulate the population of 
cities such as Buffalo according to a wide range of criteria. In addition there 
are the intercensal publications, such as the census monographs, one of the 
most important of which, from the viewpoint of this paper, is Rossiter’s work 
on Increase of Population in the United States, 1910-20, which gives informa- 
tion on population increase, movement, and so forth in Buffalo as well as other 
cities. Another group of intercensal reports are those on vital statistics, whick 
appear annually and contain detailed rate tables on births and deaths for all the 
major cities of the registration area. The mimeographed daily press releases 
issued by the Census Bureau give timely data? on many subjects, including 
birth- and death-rates, infant mortality, automobile fatalities, a so-called 
“weekly health index” by cities, and marriages and divorces by counties. 

Supplementary to the United States census publications are the publica- 
tions of the state of New York, such as the decennial census of New York 
State, which appears midway between the federal censuses, and particularly 
the annual reports of the New York State Department of Health, notably those 
on vital statistics and marriage statistics.* 

Among local sources are the annual reports of the municipal health de- 
partment, the annual reports of the department of police, which contain de- 

1 Paper read before Social Research Section of the American Sociological Soci- | 
ety, New York City, December 28, 1925. 

2 For example, the writer received on December 22 a statement of automobile 
fatalities up to December 5. 


®'Twwo volumes. The completeness and scientific value of these reports are large- 
ly due to the efforts of Professor W. F. Willcox of Cornell University and the late 
Dr. Frederick Eichel, for many years in charge of their preparation. 


242 


RESEARCH RESOURCES OF AN AMERICAN CITY 243 


tailed accounts of homicides, and the school census, which makes a separate 
' count of all children between the ages of four and eighteen and, in its records of 


removals of children from one precinct to another, provides an indication of 
intra-urban migration. Finally, the Buffalo Foundation, a private agency en- 
dowed for social research and experimentation, is, with the collaboration of the 
department of health, conducting a detailed study of infant mortality. This 
material is published in the monthly bulletin of that organization known as The 
Foundation Forum. 

Some of this information, as the school census, which is contained in the 
files of public agencies is of the nature of a public record and, in the absence of 


| specific legislation or regulation to the contrary, is usually open for inspection 


or may be examined by special permission. The student, as a citizen, has the 


_ right to examine this material, and, as a trained worker in the field of social 


science, it is his duty to make use of that right whenever it is necessary for the 


| better understanding of the organized life of his community. 


While a variety of interests might be subsumed under the heading “‘eco- 
logical and economic factors,” this discussion will be confined to questions of 


climate, housing, health, cost of living, wages, employment, and working condi- 
tions. The factor of climate is of course covered by the records of the United 


States Weather Bureau. 

On housing in Buffalo, as elsewhere, information is meager. Nevertheless, 
there is some material in the records and reports of the Municipal City Plan- 
ning Commission and the Tenement House Division of the municipal health 
department. 

Concerning health, certain information is contained in the data on vital 
statistics mentioned above. The records of the various hospitals and dispen- 


_ saries bear directly on the problem, particularly those of the Buffalo City Hos- 
| pital, which give medical and family histories, and of the dispensaries, a 


summary of whose report is included in the annual report of the New York 
State Board of Charities. The annual report of the Bureau of Public Welfare 


_ contains information concerning the number committed by that agency to the 
_ City Hospital, while in the annual report of the municipal health department 


appears a record of the incidence of contagious diseases and a summary of the 


_ work done in the tuberculosis dispensary. 


Material on the cost of living in Buffalo is included in the admirable tabu- 
lations relating to cost of living in the United States published by the Bureau 
of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor. The Bureau of 
Labor Statistics, like the Census Bureau, issues press summaries, including cost- 


244 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


of-living summaries, which give the student information more promptly than 
do the Bureau’s regular publications. A local source of cost-of-living material 
is a study of family budgets recently made for the Erie County Board of Child 
Welfare for use in its mothers’ pension allowances.* 

The publications of the New York State Industrial Commission are the 
chief source in respect to employment, wages, and working conditions. The 
Industrial Bulletin, published by this Bureau, contains articles and statistical 
series on a variety of subjects. The latter include a monthly index of employ- 
ment with a separate tabulation covering Buffalo. The Buffalo chamber of 
commerce also compiles a monthly statement of the number of employees of — 
the principal Buffalo industries. 

In respect to wages, the most valuable single source is Special Bulletin No. 
136, issued by the state Department of Labor, entitled Union Scales of Wages — 
—1925. Similar material is published by the federal bureau of labor statistics.” 
Among local sources of information are the monthly labor report covering 
common labor rates, compiled by the Buffalo Council of the Industrial Rela- 
tions Association of America, the report of the municipal bureau of public util- 
ities, and the record of appropriations of the Buffalo city council. 

A special question arises in connection with the third category of source 
material, namely, pathological factors, such as poverty, delinquency, mental 
defect and disease, and child problems. A great deal of valuable material bear- 
ing on these topics is contained in the case records of a number of public and — 
private case-working agencies. The question arises whether these agencies can, 
in fairness to their clients, permit these case records, valuable—nay, invaluable 
—as they are for scientific inquiry, to be utilized for this purpose. A confer- 
ence between the writer and the executive committee of the Buffalo Council of © 
Social Agencies developed a general agreement to the effect that the social 
agencies concerned were quite willing to co-operate in furthering legitimate 
scientific inquiry on the basis of their case material, but were quite justified in 
adopting a conservative attitude toward permitting their records to be utilized 
for these purposes, and that those seeking such facilities would be well advised 
to confine their activities to so-called inactive or “dead file” cases, to concen- 


“A new study is now being made by the Buffalo Foundation in co-operation 
with various case-working agencies. 


5 The latest tabulation is published in the September, 1925, issued under the title, 
“Wages and Hours of Labor.” 


RESEARCH RESOURCES OF AN AMERICAN CITY 245 


trate largely on summary data® rather than the details of particular case his- 
tories, to use only faculty members or advanced students of tested trustworthi- 
ness for such investigations, and, of course, carefully to disguise the identities 
involved in any material published. Though such a policy undoubtedly re- 
stricts the scope of research in this important field, the social scientist should 
bear in mind that people who are in economic or other distress should not, 
thereby, give up their rights to privacy—dquite the contrary—and that, since 
the relation of the social worker to his client is rapidly approximating the de- 
gree of confidentialness obtaining between physician and patient, it should be 
subject to the same sort of circumspection that is used by the physician in 
making scientific use of his case material. 

As the foregoing suggests, the bulk of material relating to this group of 
topics is embodied in case records. In the field of poverty, the files of the 
Charity Organization Society, the municipal Bureau of Public Welfare, the 
Catholic Charities, and the Jewish Federation for Social Service are of the 
greatest value. In the field of delinquency the most valuable source is the case 
file of the Erie County Probation Department, which contains upward of 10,000 
carefully prepared criminal case records. Similar records are maintained in 
the probation department of the Buffalo city court. In the field of mental 
hygiene there are extensive records in the files of the Children’s Court, the 
Children’s Aid Society, and the Buffalo State Hospital for the Insane, which 
does a large amount of clinical work in co-operation with the social agencies of 
Buffalo. Child problems are the special concern of a number of agencies, chief 
among them the Buffalo Children’s Court, the Children’s Aid Society, the Erie 
County Board of Child Welfare, and the child-placing department of the Cath- 
olic Charities, all of them maintaining extensive case-record files. Beside their 
case-records, nearly all of these agencies publish annual reports, all of which 
contain much socially significant material. 

Certain reports from state agencies are also valuable; for example, the 
reports of the state Hospital Commission in the field of dependency, the reports 
of the state Board of Charities and the state Charities Aid Association; in the 
field of delinquency, the annual reports of the department of police and the 
state Prison Commission; and a general index of social pathology in Buffalo is 
embodied in the tabulation, in the annual reports of the state Board of Char- 
ities, of the commitments to various state custodial and correctional institu- 


°For example, age, nationality, type of case, type of treatment, etc., of a given 
number of cases. 


246 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


tions by counties, which makes it possible to construct a time series relating to © 
the incidence of various types of pathological conditions in the Buffalo area. 

One important topic under the fourth, or miscellaneous, classification is 
the conduct and co-ordination of organized social work. The most important — 
activities in this direction have been undertaken by the Buffalo Foundation, 
which has made certain special studies of the cost of conducting social services. 
In addition, the Buffalo Joint Charities and Community Fund, and Catholic 
Charities, prepare detailed budgets for their co-operating agencies which pro- 
vide valuable information on charity organization and finance. 

In this brief survey enough and more than enough has been brought out 
amply to justify the statement that the modern American city provides any 
reasonably enterprising student with a wealth of source material already gath- 
ered for him. He need not wait for the leisure and the resources to prosecute an 
investigation on his own account. Rather he needs to gird up his loins and wade 
into the vast accumulation of valuable data that lies neglected all around him. 


NILes CARPENTER 
UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO 


THE STUDY OF ETHNIC FACTORS IN COMMUNITY LIFE? 


Through the study of ethnic factors in community life, an attempt is being 
made to develop a technique for the analysis of ethnic factors in interaction in 
a given unit of the population. Research plans for Providence, Rhode Island 
have been projected on the basis of experimental work which has been carried 
on in New London, Connecticut,? and of a second study now in progress in 
Stamford, Connecticut.® 


The project as a whole makes provision for the following: 

1. An analysis of population units with reference to ethnic composition 
and fusion. 

2. The co-ordination of specialized researches in allied fields, applied to 
the same given unit. 

3. Examination of certain aspects of the acculturation process involved in 
the adjustment of immigrant groups in American community life. 

4. The study provides for a base in a typical community, Providence, 
Rhode Island, wherein specialized researches may be concentrated, and a uni- 
versity center from which such studies may be carried on in allied fields. 

For purposes of this study the entire school population is taken as the 
unit of investigation in each instance. An attempt is made to bear in mind at 
least six principles, as follows: 

1. The difference between amalgamation and cultural assimilation. 

2. The fact of biologic adaptation. (Note Pearl and Boas.) 

3. The recognition of cultural adaptation irrespective of intermarriage or 
blood fusion. 

4. The conception of the community as a resultant cultural and objective 
product of interacting ethnic forces. 


1The above named study operates under a grant from the Laura Spelman 
Rockefeller Memorial. The research now in progress is conducted through the Uni- 
versity under the direction of a committee representing the Department of Social and 
Political Science and allied departments. Dr. James Q. Dealey is chairman of the 
committee. 

2The New London study had its inception in connection with classroom and 
field work with students in the Department of Economics and Sociology at Connecti- 
cut College, under the direction of Professor B. B. Wessel, now on leave of absence 
from that institution. 


* See footnote 1. 
247 


248 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


5. The significance of grandparentage in a determination of racial stock. 

6. The significance of the birthplace and residence of parents as a cultural 
factor in the process of adaptation. 

This report is limited to a discussion of the first and basic step of the 
study, namely, the analysis of racial composition and of facts of ethnic fusion. 
Studies of racial composition are customarily made on the basis of parentage. 
In many instances racial origin is determined according to paternal birthplace, 
a method which does not accurately indicate ethnic origin. The birthplace or 
origin of the four grandparents of the child is a better index of stock. On the 
other hand, to base a study on grandparentage only is to recognize stock as a 
hereditary force but to ignore the changes resulting from acculturation which 
may occur in the generation of parents as a result of migration and new habita- 
tion. For this reason recognition must be made of the birthplace or origin of 
six immediate ancestors, two parents and four grandparents. 

The method adopted would seem to have the following merits: 

1. In taking as its unit the school population it is taking that section of 
the population whose participation in the life of the community is predeter- 
mined. 

2. The examination of the origin of two ancestral generations recognizes 
the fact that these constitute both biologic and psychologic factors in adap- 
tation. 

3. The maternal as well as the paternal line of descent is considered. The 
practice, due probably to our citizenship regulations, of basing composition 
and fusion studies upon paternal origin is justifiable neither on biologic nor on 
psychologic grounds. 

4. The method provides for a recognition of simple, double, and triple 
fusion in each family. Fusion, or intermarriage, may originate (within the 
generations covered by the study) with either the parents, the maternal grand- 
parents, or paternal grandparents, or it may occur in all three. 

A few of the results obtained in the first study are as follows: 

1. The New London study emphasizes heterogeneity of the population. 
Thirty-two groups enter into composition, and all but two into actual fusion. 

2. Native stock diminishes rapidly depending upon the measuring-rod used 
to determine the same. For purposes of this discussion, native Americans are 
native-born of native grandparents. A comparison of the results for nativity 
as arrived at by different methods gives the following: 


ETHNIC FACTORS IN COMMUNITY LIFE 249 


Percentage of 
Native Born 


The 1920 federal census, city of New London . .°. . .. 75.0 
Children's aie er iit a lM. Fa O24 
SENOOL Census OLS SLUCY 44 FALCNtS gai ail ae oP sll we es) 440.8 
GIAndnarents ewe weg) ged) ae pwr i fer S20 


But this is not the end of the reduction of native stock. The study further in- 
dicates that in only 22 per cent of the homes are all four grandparents native 
born. Native homogenous families constitute only 22 per cent of the total 
number of homes. Ten per cent of the native-born grandparents have been 
absorbed in the fusion process. 

3. Twenty-two per cent is not an irreducible figure for native stock. Cen- 
sus figures for 1896 give a percentage for native parentage of school children 
as low as 50 per cent. It is generally known that there was considerable Dutch 
and Irish stock in the community even in Colonial days, so that “native” stock 
is not necessarily Anglo-Saxon nor homogenous in origin. 

4. Pure Italian stock is a close rival to pure native stock. Italian grand- 
parentage is unmixed in 20.77 per cent of the homes; native grandparentage has 
remained intact in 22.04 per cent of the homes. 


TABLE I 
Stock ava eee 
Pure native stock (all four grandparents native born) 401 22.04 
Pure foreign stock (all four grandparents same origin) 873 48.03 
Some fusion He's bho Rye bile Hl GANG CER Cee Tee Ie 467 25.66 
Fusion of generations only, but not of stock ptt "8 4.13 


If the above facts of composition are taken to indicate ethnic heterogene- 
ity of the community, the following facts pertaining to intermarriage and 
fusion may be said to indicate the measures of the tendency to homogeneity. 

1. If we limit the term fusion to those cases in which the stock is definite- 
ly known, that is, to first- and second-generation immigrants, we find inter- 
marriage in 6 per cent of the total number of homes under investigation (1819). 

2. Of first-generation homes, 2.6 per cent are represented in the fusion 
process. 

3. The rate of intermarriage or fusion increases rapidly in the second and 
third generations (goo per cent). 

4. Permitting the term “fusion” to apply to cases where there is a third 
generation factor, i.e., native Americans, we find fusion occurring in 25.7 
per cent. 


250 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


5. A third-generation factor appears in 19.3 per cent of the total number 
of cases of fusion. 

6. Of the total number of cases in which there are native American fac- 
tors, 46.8 per cent are in fusion. 

7. Fusion of native stock is very rapid—at the rate of 30.67 per cent in a 
generation, as measured by the absorption of grandparents into the population 
as a whole. 

8. It became obvious in the course of the study, that a large number of 
“Canadians” in the community are really second-generation Irish. 

9. In practically every combination the Irish women lead in fusion, i.e., 
in the different generation combinations, in the generation of parents as well as 
of grandparents. They marry into widely different racial groups. 

It may be asked, What are the possible applications of such findings? If 
our findings are indicative, and they cannot be so regarded until several parallel 
studies have been completed, several problems are involved: 

1. This nation has, in recent years, been intent upon an analysis of racial 
composition, upon which it bases legislation of far-reaching importance. The 
results of such analyses are dependent upon principles of classification. Differ- 
ent methods bring widely different results. 

2. In view of the fact that in 30 per cent of the homes examined children 
are the product of some kind of ethnic fusion, it must be recognized that this 
group of children constitutes a separate unit in all research studies—or as sub- 
jects of educational procedure—whether the interest be in health indexes, 
growth studies, the measuring of intelligence, the determination of educational 
practice, or an examination of the effects of fusion. 

3. The above statement holds true also in a study of mental averages for — 
the different racial groups. Without inquiring at all into the adequacy of the 
present mental tests for a determination of racial intelligence the whole basis of 
classification may be called into question, and it must be urged that only those — 
who are racially homogenous can be counted within a given ethnic group, and 
that others constitute a unit for experimental work. 

It might be added that this study is an attempt to recognize that the cor- 
rect way to study ethnic forces at work in modern community life is to study 
the community as a unit and the ethnic forces therein from various angles, and 
that the first step for the purposes of orientation and exploration is a careful 
analysis of the population unit under investigation. 


B. B. WESSEL 


BrRowN UNIVERSITY 


SEGREGATION OF POPULATION TYPES IN THE 
KANSAS CITY AREA? 


Casual observation and superficial studies indicate that the population of 
Greater Kansas City, as of other urban areas, is distributed and segregated 
with reference to the following factors: (1) There are a number of “natural 
areas” determined largely by topography and the organization of transporta- 
tion. (2) Peoples of different color are more or less segregated. (3) People 
with distinctive language and culture are grouped together. (4) Incomes and 
land values divide the population into economic classes with separate residence 
districts. (5) Clients of social agencies are concentrated into definite areas. 
(6) The physically mobile, i.e., transient, folk are found together. (7) More- 
over, this last-named class seems to have the most limited social contacts and 
most restricted participation in neighborhood and community life. (8) Apart 
from income levels and national backgrounds persons whose standards of living 
are similar are to be found living near together. The present report deals al- 
most entirely with the last four aspects of segregation. 

By means of spot maps and personal interviews two precincts were chosen 
for study in each of the three municipalities (Kansas City and Topeka, Kansas, 
and Kansas City, Missouri). These pairs of precincts, which were designated 
A and B, respectively, differed strikingly in that in the B precincts lived many 
persons and families served by social-work and health agencies, while the A 
precincts received almost no such service in the year studied. But in other re- 
spects the A and B precincts were believed to be much alike; specifically so in 
race, nationality, income, and schooling. The hypothesis to be tested was that 
mobility furnished a clue to explanation of the segregation of maladjusted folk 
in the B precincts. 

The following data indicate the degree of success that attended the effort 
to eliminate race, nationality, income, and schooling as possible causes of the 
segregation. The population of all six precincts was white and overwhelmingly 
native-born. There were no Negroes at all, and the few foreigners, with rare 
exceptions, had been long in this country and were naturalized. With reference 


1The data included in this paper were assembled by three graduate students at 
the University of Kansas: Mrs. W. F. Asendorf, Miss Louise Griest, and Mr. Robert 
O. Loosley. The original data may be found in their unpublished theses in the Uni- 
versity of Kansas library. 
251 


ane THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


to economic status it was found that in two pairs of precincts the differences 
were relatively small. But in the third pair (Kansas City, Kansas) there was a 
marked divergence. The lists of occupations represented in the A and B pre- 
cincts are very similar, but there is a slight excess of “white-collar” jobs in the 
A precincts. Also, there are more employed women and children in the B pre- 
cincts, especially in the two Kansas City’s. As to education, there was found 
to be relatively little difference, either in the age of leaving school or in the 
grade reached. However, such differences as obtained were consistently in 
favor of the A precincts and were most marked in Kansas City, Kansas. The 
educational status of school children varied correspondingly. That is, there 
was more retardation and less acceleration in the B precincts, this difference 
being most marked in Kansas City, Kansas. 

On the basis of these data it was felt that factors of race and nationality 
had been eliminated as possible causes of the segregation of maladjusted folk 
in the B precincts. In two of the three cities differences in income and educa- 
tion were very largely ruled out. The next task was to determine whether the 
A and B precincts differed significantly as to physical and social mobility. 

Physical mobility was measured in terms of length of residence in house, 
precinct, and city, reregistration of voters, ownership of homes and furniture, 
and continuity of employment. In the two Kansas City’s it was found that resi- 
dents of the A precincts had, on the average, lived much longer in house, pre- 
cinct, and city than had residents of the B precincts. In Topeka this relation 
was reversed. The explanation of this lies very clearly in the fact that many 
new houses had been erected in the A precinct during the past six years, while 
very few had been built in the B precinct. In all three cities the relative 
transiency was more accurately shown by comparing the percentages in each 
precinct who had lived in the house, precinct, or city less than one year. On 
this basis the physical mobility of the B precincts was markedly and consistent- 
ly greater than that of the A precincts. One objection has been raised to this 
method of measuring mobility. It is to the effect that length of residence of 
those now in a district is no index of the time they may be expected to remain. 
Taken by itself we are inclined to believe this criticism sound, but taken in con- — 
nection with our knowledge of the trends in these districts we believe our data 
to be highly significant indexes of physical mobility. We refer specifically to 
the fact that each of the B precincts is being invaded by business and industry, 
while each of the A precincts is protected by zoning ordinances. Hence there is 
every reason to believe that, whatever changes may take place in the physical 
mobility of the A precincts, that of the B precincts will almost certainly in- 
crease. In Kansas City, Missouri, it was possible to make a test in terms of the 


SEGREGATION OF POPULATION TYPES 253 


reregistration of voters. In the A precinct 90 per cent of the 1924 voters were 
eligible to vote in the same precinct in 1925, while the corresponding percentage 
in the B precinct was only 68. In the A precinct only 16 per cent of the 1925 
voters were new in the precinct, while the corresponding percentage in precinct 
B was 29. Further light on the relative physical mobility of A and B precincts 
is shed by data concerning the ownership of homes and furniture. Those who 
expect to remain for some time are likely to buy property, and then the fact of 
ownership makes them more likely to remain. The percentage of ownership, 
both of homes and of furniture, was markedly greater in the A precincts than 
in the B precincts. Thus the evidence seems fairly convincing as to the greater 
physical mobility of the people living in the B precincts. 

Bearing both on physical and social mobility are the data concerning 
length of time in occupation and in job. These show a marked and consistently 
greater stability in the A precincts. But a more important criterion of social 
mobility is that of range of contacts and participation in group life, such as 
membership in local organizations. The present study took special account of 
church, lodge, and union. It showed that membership in the first two organiza- 
tions was much more general in the A precincts, while union membership was 
about the same in A and B. Likewise, there was, in the A precincts, a much 
higher proportion of persons belonging to two or more organizations than in 
the B precincts. 

The evidence of this study, though admittedly incomplete, indicates that 
transiency, i.e., physical mobility, is much more marked in the B than in the A 
precincts, while the social contacts and participation in community life—social 
mobility—are much greater in the A than in the B precincts. Race, nationality, 
income, and education are not the only factors involved in the segregation of 
maladjusted folk into “trouble centers” in our large cities. On the contrary, 
such segregation may take place independently of these factors. When this is 
the case two of the significant variables are physical and social mobility, there 
being in the “trouble centers,” sometimes at least, an excessive physical mo- 
bility coupled with a limited range of social contacts and a limited participation 
in group life. 

This opens up two further problems: (1) how have the people in the B 
precincts come to be so transient and at the same time socially isolated; and 
(2) how have the A and the B groups come to occupy their respective locations 
in the urban area? The first we are frankly unable to answer. The second can 
be answered for the most part in terms of the histories of the several districts. 


Stuart A. QUEEN 
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS 


THE EFFECT OF IMMIGRATION UPON THE INCREASE OF 
POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES 


The objective in this investigation was the application of the method of 
correlation to data in the sociological field to discover whether or not and to 
what degree immigration into the United States retarded the natural increase of 
the native stock. In order to realize the objective it was necessary to establish 
a measure of increase. The ratio of infants of a certain class to one thousand 
females of the same class was selected because it is applicable to all states, 
areas, and kinds of populations. The class of infants was that of native or for- 
eign plus one-half those of mixed parentage, and the corresponding class of 
females was all native or foreign white females fifteen to forty-four years of 
age. 

With such a measure it was found possible to throw light on the question 
of the effect of immigration on population increase aside from applying it to 
correlation. By it we are able to judge as to the comparative rate of increase 
of native white and foreign-born white stock. If we regard the increase of the 
native white stock as one hundred in each case, then we have these rates of in- 
crease of the foreign-born white stock for the nation and for each of the divi- 
sions. For the nation it is 169. For the various divisions it is as follows: New 
England states, 222.5; Middle Atlantic, 224; East North-Central, 189; West 
North-Central, 185; South Atlantic, 132; East South-Central, 114; West South- 
Central, 136; Mountain, 159; Pacific, 183. We notice that in the heavy for- 
eign-born sections of New England and the Middle Atlantic states the foreign 
stock is increasing more than twice as fast as native whites, while in the three 
southern divisions having little immigration, only about one-fourth faster on 
the average than the native white stock. When we rank the divisions according 
to the degree of preponderance of increase of foreign-born whites over that of 
native whites, and again according to the percentage of foreign whites in the 
population, there is a 67 per cent agreement in the ranking. This indicates that 
the increase among the native whites varies inversely with the percentage of 
foreign whites in the population. 

It is worth mentioning, in passing, that our facts are sufficient to show that 
the native white stock present at the founding of our nation would have de- 
clined, undoubtedly, had there been no immigration to our shores. The line of 
proof is twofold—that contained in the trend of increase prior to the coming of 


254 


IMMIGRATION AND INCREASE OF POPULATION 255 


immigrants in great numbers and that contained in the steady decline in rates 
of increase among nations which have never had any considerable immigration. 

Out of the many correlations that were run we may take occasion to men- 
tion certain of the more important ones and to point out a few significant 
features. The subject in all of the correlations was the ratio of infants of native 
white mothers plus one-half those of mixed parentage to 1,000 native white 
females fifteen to forty-four years of age. When we regard states as states, the 
coefficient of correlation between the subject mentioned and the percentage of 
foreign-born was —o.76, with an error of 0.04; with the percentage of urbanism 
the coefficient was —o0.85, with an error of 0.03; with percentage of negroes in 
the population, the coefficient was +-0.42, with an error of 0.08; with the per- 
centage of the population engaged in manufacture, the coefficient was —o.71, 
with an error of 0.05; with per capita income, the coefficient was —o.82, with 
an error of 0.03; and with the educational index the coefficient was —o0.64, with 
an error of 0.06. 

In the case of the urban population of the nation, with the percentage of 
foreign-born as the relative, the coefficient was —o.60 with an error of 0.06; 
with percentage of Negroes as the relative, r was ++0.57 and P.E. was 0.07. 
For the rural population, when the relative was percentage of foreign-born, r 
was —o.62 and P.E. was 0.06; when the relative was percentage of Negroes, r 
was +0.44 and P.E. was 0.08. 

In the case of thirty-six states having a foreign population of 5 per cent or 
more, with the percentage of foreign-born as relative, r was —o.73 and P.E. 
was 0.075; with urbanism as relative, r was —0.70 and P.E. was 0.056; with in- 
dustrialism as relative, r was —o.62 and P.E. was 0.07. 

In the case of twenty-four states having a Negro population of 3 per cent 
or more, with urbanism as relative, r was —o.93 and P.E. was 0.02; with per- 
centage of Negroes or relative, r was --0.78 and P.E. was 0.05; with industrial- 
ism as relative, r was —o.78 and P.E. was 0.05. 

The number of items in some of these series were too small to render the 
best results; but they are confirmatory of the results obtained from the more 
extensive series. 

A few comments may be in order. 

1. The results of correlation support those obtained from the other studies 
mentioned, namely, that the rate of increase of native whites is in inverse pro- 
portion to the percentage of foreigners in the population. 

2. The presence of Negroes exerts an influence directly contrary to that of 
the presence of foreign whites. The highest rates of increase among the native 


256 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


whites is greatest where the percentage of Negroes in the population is greatest. 
Since the position of the Negro is one of status, he does not compete with 
whites for wealth or position. Hence he is an advantageous factor and stimu- 
lates, or at least does not restrict, increase of population. 

3. The presence of the foreign-born is only one of several factors that 
check the increase among the native whites. For the states, the comparative 
checking strength among factors which may be considered causal as expressed 
by the rank of coefficients are as follows: urbanism, income, foreign-born, in- 
dustrialism, education, Negro. By the use of the method of multiple and par- 
tial correlation relative to urbanism and foreign-born, we get these results. 
When urbanism is excluded, the coefficient of increase and foreign-born is 
—o.58. Excluding the force of foreign-born gives a coefficient between increase 
and urbanism of —o.61. 

4. From the somewhat independent lines of procedure represented in this 
investigation we feel warranted in saying that it has been demonstrated that 
immigration does retard the increase of the native white stock. Further, that 
since the native white stock comprises over 77 per cent of the national popula- 
tion, we may be warranted in saying that immigration checks the increase of 
the nation’s population. But we have not shown that our population is less 
than it would be had there been no immigration, and it is our firm belief that it 
is impossible to demonstrate that or its opposite. 


J. M. GILLettrEe 
UNIVERSITY OF NortH DAKOTA 


CHANGES IN OCCUPATION AND ECONOMIC STATUS OF SEVERAL 
HUNDREDS OF AMERICAN FAMILIES DURING 
FOUR GENERATIONS 


The materials presented in this paper are a sample of a study of the verti- 
cal social mobility in its occupational and economic forms, the study which on 
a larger scale is now being carried on at the University of Minnesota. The data 
are collected through questionnaires from the students of the summer session 
at the University of Minnesota, from Minneapolis business men (by Miss M. 
Tanquist), and from the alumni of the University of Minnesota (by Mr. O. V. 
Mehus). 


TABLE I 
SumMER Session STUDENTS Mrinnearouis Business MEN 
~ 
UJ s ee! _— ep! 
n s32"24 ne n ars ne 
5H eSat ges 4s ‘ssh gs 
G Sages OSs fF $283 883 
i ea OnRES onF g ea OBS s Sug 
Generations Sq S!qdan Ba BA Sq ‘Snds g0 8A 
uO HOS wo So84 a) wea ah y S64. 
5 W8289RG An ot Og 8VYOnq Sati 
ay bbe 8.4 gh 23 28558 8.40 
6a 8Eass geass fa §ESES FASS 
iF a Ay A a AY 
Parental great-grandfather 
and grandfather . . 93 67 72.0 23 16 00.5 
Grandfather and father . 131 5I 38.9 49 22 44.9 
Father and propositus . 85 9 10.6 59 6 10.1 


I. INTEROCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY 


Table I shows the percentage of the transmission of the father’s occupa- 
tional status to one of his sons during four generations. 

M. Mehus’s data concerning 407 alumni have given the 17.7 per cent of 
the transmission from the father to the propositus. 

In Table II there is taken not one, but all, grandfathers’ independent sons 
gainfully engaged and all independent sons of the fathers of the propositi. The 
results of this “wholesale” transmission of occupation are as follows. 

From the tables it follows that, within these groups, the percentage of 
transmission of occupational status from fathers to sons has been systemati- 
cally decreasing from generation to generation as we pass from the great- 
grandfathers to the propositi. This means that family occupational status 


257 


258 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


tends to determine less and less the occupational status of its children. This 
indicates that, as far as an inheritance of occupation is a conspicuous trait of 
a caste régime, the caste tendency has been decreasing from generation to gen- 
eration. This signifies that a man’s occupation is now determined in a greater 
degree by other, than family, agencies and conditions. Finally, the figures 


TABLE I 
SumMER SESSION STUDENTS MrinneEapotis Business MEn 
! g aS : q ag 
o ° U oO [o} U 
2 sie g#aa8 & ie go 2 
Hn Gace Hie? Sn 2 AE Boog 
— =| Bs 9 Wer: | sa Bs @ wos 
qf “4868 6, 78 <3 “98a Sana 
GENERATIONS ‘Se SOG e ue gm Sz SOBL a of gu 
=| Ow ° on ° 
BS p8e28 Egce gS B8e28 Eas 
Cate, ‘aoa o28o Sa GaesgH g408¢ 
FR &§Bwae 8835 68 §Esee sess 
a a Ay a a a4 
Parental grandfather and 
hiseSOns pee ne ee 330 122 37.0 168 49 29.2 
Fatherandhissons . 299 79 26.1 142 32 225 


show an increase of interoccupational mobility from generation to generation. 
I have some reasons to think that the above trend is common to a considerable 
part of the population of the United States and Europe, but this supposition 
still must be tested by further studies in this field. 

In accordance with these conclusions Table III shows the occupational 


TABLE III 
OccUPATIONAL CHANGE WITHIN THE LIFE oF ONE GENERATION 
Four 
CasES No ONE Two THREE 
STUDIED CHANGE CHANGE CHANGES CHANGES CH. woe 
GENERATIONS 8 a & i 4 ee 4 a 7 A se 
=| a =| =| a a 
g 88 E ae E 32 FE 8 ei E 2 FE 82 
A 8 3 } 3 3 3 3 Hy a oS 3 
a Ay ZG a Za Za a 
Fathers . A 40) 100.0,7 328 57.2 TOmy 32 .0nnr4d eee oa I 2.0) 0:0; 0.4 
Sons t P AGLTOO.0 2000434 nT 3 25.3)emn 5 md O.O an ue aE 23 
Sons(alumni). 407 100.0 173 42.5 161 39.5 48 11.7 23 §.6 2 O04 


change within the life of one generation. Though the occupational career of © 
the propositi as different from that of their fathers, is far from being ended, 
nevertheless the number of interoccupational shiftings is greater in the genera- 
tion of the propositi than in that of their fathers. This indicates again a tend- 
ency toward an increase of interoccupational mobility. 


AMERICAN FAMILIES OF FOUR GENERATIONS 259 


Table IV shows throughout how occupations are dispersed, not only where 
the sons belong to the same occupational group as the fathers, but on the other 
hand, from what occupational groups are recruited the members of the same 
occupation. 


TABLE IV 
Sons’ OccuPATION 
1o nS ot ay 
foe HE sta sa - 848 ya 
Se Py Od OF Euss 5 ts AQ 
FatTHers’ OCCUPATION Ee 34 wee BU, Shoe ow al oy 
nian dh Fig Onn On So ees s | 
2 HBO os Sou B85 8°o au 4 4 =" 
o >So Wa ORS SBR gee = o ae 
Bf ges S52 gas 55 2233 8 S Be a 
I $8n ZFS BAO Bet samm Bg q gD 3 
cm BH oO Ay n = isa n n BR 
Farmers 68 61 a 60 18 37 a 13 II 298 
Teachers of elemen- 
tary and high 
school. . 2 3 I 2 I nt ne a Se 9 
College and univer- 
sity instructors .. Se ne ae I ar Ric ay aD I 
Physicians, clergy, 
lawyers, artists, 
other professions 1 25 6 44 14 4) 2 I 2 102 


Manufacturers, 
merchants, busi- 
ness men, etc. I 24 4 38 8 37 ne) Ey 7 146 


Executives, clerks 1 I 2 2 I 7 II I ve 26 
Skilled laborers 4 6 2 8 6 9 4 7 I 47 
Semi-skilled and 

unskilled labor- 

ers ae skis! s 2 ate I 2 2 2 I 2 12 


wee lll eel SS i S§i§=— 


Total a Ebb 122 18 155 51 99 36 40 a3 621 


From Table IV it follows that the sons of the fathers of the same occupa- 
tion are dispersed throughout the most different occupations; that the mem- 
bers of each occupation are recruited from the offsprings of the different occu- 
pational groups (vertical line); that the proportion of the children who enter 
the father’s occupation is still the highest of the proportion who enter any 
other occupation; that some of the sons of a paternal group are climbing up 
the social ladder, while some others are going down; that inheritance of occu- 


260 THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


pation in the professional group is somewhat higher than in any other one. So 
much for interoccupational mobility. 

From the table it follows that an increase in interoccupational mobility is 
not necessarily correlated with that in economic status. It happens to be more 
stable than an occupational status. 


II. CHANGES IN ECONOMIC STATUS 


The first result disclosed by the data in this field is that there is no trend 
of a decrease of transmission of economic status from the father to his sons 
This is seen from Table V. 


TABLE V 
SumMMER SESSION STUDENTS MINNEAPOLIS Business MEN 
N we of N abe of 
ases in ases in 
. >, Percentage he », Percentage 
GENERATIONS Number yee S of Trans- Number ayers Nee Sof Trans- 
of Cases mission of of Cases Chat ta mission of 


Studied Praha Economic Studied Identical Economic 


with That of Status with That of Status 
His Father His Father 
Paternal grandfather and 
father SD Ie PI ae Ys, 82 64.6 41 II 26.8* 
Father and propositus . 123 82 66.6 42 II 26.1* 
Father and all his inde- 
pendent sons Le eA TA. 305 93.7 IIo 32 29.1* 


_ _.* Absolute percentage of transmission here is very different from that of the students’ group because 
in the group of the business men have been used more detailed subdivisions of the income groups thanin 
the students’ group. Hence the difference in the percentage of the transmission. 


Table VI shows that the economic status of the “middle” groups fluctu- 
ates less than that of the “poor” or of the “well to do” classes: percentage of 
an identical economic status of the father and the son is much higher in the 
“middle” group than in the extreme ones. 

This table shows that for the poor there are greater chances to climb up 
than to go down, while for the well-to-do groups the chances are reversed. 
This may be the result of the limited number of the cases studied. It may, 
however, indicate also a real tendency for the groups studied. 

Finally, Table VII shows that the greater the economic distance to be 
crossed by an individual, the less is the number of such “jumpers.” Under the 
“ordinary” change in economic status I mean a transition from one status to 
the next higher or lower. Under the “extraordinary” change I mean a transi- 
tion from one status to the third, when the next step is skipped. The “extraor- 


AMERICAN FAMILIES OF FOUR GENERATIONS 261 


dinary change of the second degree” means a transition from a status to the 
fourth, when the two next steps are skipped. 

To what extent the above results are typical I cannot say. This may be 
said only after further studies in this field, studies which are worth making in 
view of the theoretical and practical importance of the discussed problems. 


TABLE VI 
Economic STATUS OF SONS 
Percentage 
Number of Cases 
Economic STaTus Neues in Which Eco- oe thea eerateee Direction of 
OF FATHERS aE nomic Status of ee poe Vase Bee hanges 
Sons Is Identical Cena ee elim bing Up OF 
Cases Sen Raine Status from Status of Btn BTIO 
(Sons) Their Fath the Father Sons ae ONY 
Studied SE Pane eto the Son 
Students’ fathers 
poor (income less 
than $500) . - ele 3 16.7 83.3 All went up 
i 8 per cent 
Middle (from $500 P 
to $3,000) 329 277 84.2 15.8 banat: 
: oes ae : per cent, down 
Well-to-do ($3,000 and 
more) Ee oes ted BO 7 30 37.3 62.7 Went down 
Businessmen fathers : ; 
Income less than $700 4 fo) 0.0 100.0 Went up 
Income from $700 to 
ST. 200MM mINCOn fest) ELA 5 35-7 64.3 Went up 
247 per cent 
Income from $1,200 to 7P , 
$2,000 30 15 50.0 50.0 Went Ups Aes 
i Wire Vics : 4 hee 
Income from $2,000 to 40 per cent 
$5,000. - 55 14 25.4 74.6 up; 34,down 
Income $5,000 andover 18 4 22.2 77.8 All down 
TABLE VII 
Percentage of 
Total Percentage of Percentage of : 
Groups Studied Percentage Ordinary [Extraordinary rey 
of Changes Changes Changes Second Degree 
Fathers ofthestudents . . . 100.0 Q1.5 8.5 
StCCntS Mme. tele ee hive yeiigis) 5 ZO0.0 92.8 7.2 
Minneapolis business men . . 100.0 76.0% 18.0* 6.0 


* The difference in absolute figures compared with that for the summer session group is again due to 
the more detailed subdivision of income groups in the group of the business men. 


Pirrrim A. SOROKIN 
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 


n 


INDEX TO AUTHORS 


Abrahams, Israel, r10 
Adams, Harold, 138 

Allport, F. H., 31 

Anderson, Nels, 198, 202, 203 
Asendorf, Mrs. W. F., 251 


Babcock, F. S., 168 
Bakst, L. N., 39 
Bancroft, H. H., 201 
Barrows, H. H., 167 
Bartlett, F..C.; 31 
Bataillon, Lionel, 4 
Belloc, Hilaire, 106, 107 
Bergson, Henri, 12, 63 
Bloch, I., 201 
Boas, Franz, 94, 247 
Boas, Helena, 94 
Bogardus, E. S., 40, 54 
Bowman, LeRoy E., 160 
Burgess, E. W., ix, 5, 12, 40, 98, 162, 194, 
221 
Butterfield, K. L., vii 
Carpenter, Niles, 246 
Carver, T. N., 85 
Chaddock, R. E., 160 
Chamberlain, H. S., 105 
Cohen, Israel, 107, 109 
Cooley, C. H., 21, 23, 34, 234, 235 


Davenport, C. B., 92 


bi Davies, G. R., 154 


Dealey, J. Q., 247 
Dewey, John, 13 


Dublin, Louis, 139 
Durkheim, Emile, 3 


Eichel, F., 242 
Elmer, M. C., 163 
Ely, R. T., 168 


265 


Engelhardt, N. L., 238 
Evers, C. C., 167 


Faris, Ellsworth, 37 
Faris, John T., 179 
Febre, Lucien, 4 
Fisher, E. M., 167 
Fishberg, M., 106, 107 
Prost, i. )227 


Galpin, C. J., vii 

Gamble, S.D., 102 

Gehlke, C. E., 138 

Geiseler, W. 201 

Giddings, F. H., 47 

Gillette, J. M., vii, 154, 256 
Goodrich, Ernest P., 150 
Gras; Nis. Bs 177, 191, 224 
Gumplowitz, L., 70 

Griest, Louise, 251 


Haldane, John Scott, 72 
Hart, Hornell, 143 

Henley, W. E., 37 

Herrick, Cryo. 7 5 
Herskovits, M. J., 69, 95, 97 
Hurd, R. M., 167, 220 
Hurlin, R. G., 216 


Isman, F., 178 


Johnson, R. H., 68, 90 
Johnston, Mary, 155 


Knibbs, G. H., 124 
Kroeber, A. L., 75 


Langdell, Christopher, C., 212 
Lebvre, Lucien, 4 

Lincoln, Abraham, 217 
Loosley, R. O., 251 

Love, A. G., 92 


266 


McDougall, W., 29, 31, 32 
McKenzie, R. D., 182, 205 
Mead, G. H., 21 

Mehus, O. M., 257 
Morehouse, E. W., 168 
Mowrer, E. R., 229 


Napoleon, Bonaparte, 41 
Newsholme, A., 124 
Nietsche, F. W., 63 
North, C. C., 237 


Ogburn, W. F., 8 
Olcott, G. C., 204 


Park, Robert E., viii, 18, 40, 98, 194, 221, 
223 


Parker, Carleton, 31 
Parkhurst, C. H., 219 
Patri, Angelo, 216, 217 
Patti, Adelina, 39 
Pearl, R., 247 
Pearson, Karl, 133 
Persons, W. M., 134 
Petermann, A., 119 
ETL GAA T 
Pozderski, Roman, 138 


Queen, 5S. A., 253 


Reckless, W. C., 198, 205 
Reuter, E. B., 69 

Riis, Jacob, 219 

Root, Elihu, 221 

Ross, J. M., or 

Rossiter, W. S., 242 


Sanderson, D., 234 
St. Francis, 24 


THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


Shaw, C. R., 198, 229 
Shideler, E. H., 168 
Simmel, G., 55 

Sinclair, U., 220 
Snedden, David, 234 
Sobieski, John, 41 
Solenberger, Alice W., 202 
Sorokin, Pitirim A., 261 
Spencer, H., 28, 74, 75 
Spengler, O., 55 
Spykman, N. J., 64 
Stead, W. H., 219 
Steffens, L., 220 

Strayer, G. D., 238 
Sumner, G. W., 28 
Supan, A. G., 119 
Sutherland, E. H., 68, 78 


Tanquist, M., 257 
Tarbell, Ida M., 220 
Thomas, W. I., 47 
Todd, T. W., 92 
Trotter, W., 31 


Warming, Eugenius, 3 
Weber, A. F., 115, 122 
Wesley, John, 25 
Wessel, Bessie B., 247, 250 
Westermarck, E., 201 
Whipple, G. C., 124 
Whitely, Opal, 24 
Willcox, W. F., 121, 242 
Wilson, W. H., 176 
Wirth, Louis, 69, 112 
Woolston, H. B., 132 


Znaniecki, F., 73, 77 


Zorbaugh, H. W., 69, 105, 229 


SUBJECT INDEX 


Assimilation, 7-8 


Behavior, conditioning of, 40 
Birthrates of American cities, 122-32 
Biological and social processes, 70-78 


Chicago Zoning Commission, 227-28 

City: and art, 62-63; and economics, 61—- 
62; and aesthetic values, 64; and its 
primary group life, 57; and moral be- 
havior, 59-60; and politics, 60-61; as a 
community, 233-37; as natural phe- 
nomenon, 219-21; birthrate of Ameri- 
can, 122-32; centers of, 177-78; central- 
ization in, 175-76; commercialized vice 
areas, 192-205; complexity of, 58-59; 
defined, 119; dweller in furnished 
rooms, 98-105; economic factors in 
size of American, 133-38; ethnic factors 
in, 247-50; eugenics of, 79-90; expecta- 
tion of life in, 139-43; growth of, 5-11, 
146-48, 151-54; human ecology of, 
167-82; modern, 9-10; natural areas of, 
II-12, 98-99, 194-96, 219-29; plan of, 
in relation to population, 144-50; popu- 
lation distribution in, 139-43; redefini- 
tion of, 115-21; research resources of, 
242-46; residential areas of, 238-41; 
rise of the metropolitan, 183-91; social 
philosophy of, 55-64; sociological struc- 
ture of, 55; statistics of, 228-29; zones 
in transition of, 161-63, 196 

City plan: and regional planning, 208-11; 
community participation in, 206-18; 
local community as a unit in, 238-41; 
project method in, 211-12 


Commercialized vice: distribution of, 
192-205; indexes of, 198-205 

Community: plant, 3; life-span of, 7 

Country, defined, 119 

Cultural lag, 8 


Demoralization, defined, 47 

Density of population: as a basis for de- 
fining the city, 115-21; in relation to the 
maladjustment of youth, 161-63 


Ethnocentrism, 28-30 
Economic status, changes in, 260-61 


Hinterland, 184-90 

Human ecology: defined, 3, 4, 167; factors 
of, 171-72; processes in, 221-24; scope 
of, 167-82 

Human nature: and einfiihlung, 25; and 
instinct, 31-33; and social movements, 
35-36; as imagination, 27-28; as one’s 
conception of one’s self, 17, 23; mutabil- 
ity of, 34-35; nature of, 21-37; origin 
of, 21-24 


Immigration: an increase of population, 
254-56; geographical distribution of, 
79-80; urban and rural selection, 80-83 

Intelligence quotient, communal, 4 

Individuality and character, 35-37 


Japanese, 80 
Jews: a social type, 105-106; city type, 
80, 82; types of, 106-12 


Labor: and invention, 14; division of, 4 
Land values, 6 


Metropolitan community, rise of, 183-191 


Mobility: and community organization, 
155-69; and fluidity, 169-70; and social 
disorganization, 12; area of greatest, 
10-11; as measured by changes in, 
occupation, 257-61; defined, 12; inter- 
occupational, 257-60; physical and 
social, 252-53; vertical social, 257 


New York Regional Plan, 214-16 


Personality: acquired, 33-34; and indi- 
viduality, 35-36; as totality of behavior 
traits, 39; in the urban environment, 
38-47; patterns classified, 102-105 


Polish immigrant, as a dissociated per- 
sonality, 45 


267 


268 


Population: as affected by immigration, 
254-56; declining, 202-204; economics 
of, 148-49; in relation to city plan, 144- 
50; mobility of, and community organ- 
ization, 155— ~60 

Position, concept of, 15 

Preliterate peoples, mental capacity of, 
25-27 


Research resources of Buffalo, 242-46 


Segregation: and personal disorganiza- 
tion, 192-93; as a process, 8-9, 179-80; 
of population types, 251-53 

Social distance: and _ self-consciousness, 
16; and status, 17, 53-54; as a result of 
invasion, 53-54; in the city, 48-54; 
measurement of, 48-49 

Social interaction, classified, 74 

Social organism, 15 

Social process, defined, 70 


THE URBAN COMMUNITY 


Social selection, and the American Negro, 
91-97 

Social status: and the person, 16-18; of 
the hybrid, 68, 77-78, 96 

Social type, defined, 98 

Society: as a moral order, 17; defined, 13 

Sociology and biology, 67—69 


Statistics, significance for sociology, 18, 
I61 


Urban selection: by birth control, 88-90; 
by differential death-rate, 83; by differ- 
ential fecundity, 86-88; by immigra- 
tion, 80-83; by marriage rate, 83-86 

Village, defined, 119 

Who’s Who, persons in, 4 


Youth maladjustment, 161-63 


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